With You There to Help Me
by Bastille Kain
Summary: Spike averts the apocalyspe at the cost of his life. Buffy wants him back, but what she gets isn't what she expected.
1. Prologue: Goodbye to You

Author: Kain

Title: With You There to Help Me

Disclaimer: Aside from a few Original Character's I created I own nothing. The character's of Buffy, Angel, and any other show that happens to be unforunate enough to wind up being used here belong to other people.

Spoilers: AU ending to season 7. From there it goes even further afield with still maintaining the season 4 & 5 plot line.

Summary: Spike averts the apocalypse at the cost of his own life. Buffy wants him back, but she gets isn't what she was expecting.

Pairings: B(D)/S, X/A, W/T, S/F, B/F, F/S/B, D/F

Rating: R. Adult language, graphic violence, and strong sexual content.

Feedback: Is always apprectiated. Just try to keep it construtive.

Email: Kain6639@yahoo.com

Archive: If you like it that much, sure. Just be sure to let me know where it's going, and give me the credit, good or bad, for my work.

**__**

Prologue: Goodbye to You

The wind blows across the vast sea of shoulder high, golden brown grass, whipping it about without a care. There was some concern among the villagers that their homes, which were mainly straw huts, would not survive the raging fury of the wind storm. Large dust clouds sprang up constantly among the huts. The sudden dust storms make being out doors, exposed to the ravenous wind driven sands, a dangerous task. Only those with vital purpose to be out of doors were.

Tun was one such. The lanky, dark skinned villager, dressed in thick hides, was doing his best to gather up as much of his families belongings as he could before it was blown away by the wind storm most of the villagers thought was called down upon them by their god. A punishment for allowing the stranger to enter their holiest of holy places. It had been after his arrival that the great winds had begun to batter their homes with far more regularity then ever before.

At first he thought the person he saw at the edge of the village was a mirage, a trick of the wind, or some kind of apparition. He shields his eyes, squinting against the harsh driven sand, as he tries to see if the person was really there or just a figment of his over wrought imagination. It doesn't take him long to realize the person is really there, walking forward with powerful strides that eat up the ground in front of them at an impossible rate. Before their purposeful steps the wind, that threatens to topple sturdy huts, might be nothing more then a light breeze. The sand, driven with enough force that can rip open a man's flesh seconds, is like a gentle spring rain.

In a matter of moments the stranger is close enough for Tun to see her clearly, or as clearly as she could be seen with sand obscuring everything. She was a small girl, her eyes probably no higher then Tun's lowest rib, with long, dark blonde hair whipping around her head. The black leather duster she wore billowed around her as she strode forward, the bottom of the long coat almost scraping along the ground.

All Tun needed to know to stay out of the small girl's way was one good look at her face. A mask of fury and rage so pure the storm he and his fellow villagers faced was nothing in comparison. The storm was nothing but a pale shadow in the face of the sun. For a moment Tun wonders if she has come to kill their god, or if the devastating storms they had face all year was just the harbinger of her arrival.

Buffy was glad that the villagers had stayed out of her path. She didn't feel like having to force her way to her destination, the cave at the far end of the village. She wasn't much in a talking frame of mind, not since her friends, her watcher, her sister had abandoned her, kicked her out of her own house, and left her with nothing. She been in more of a beat it until it stops moving, or begging for it's life, mindset since then.

The village itself, while not very large, only a couple hundred feet around, was a good hundred or so yards away from the lone cliff that housed the demon she was looking for. A demon that a year ago had granted Spike his greatest desire. Returning his soul so that she, a self-centered little bitch, would be able to love him. Things hadn't worked out quite the way Spike had planned, but then again when did anything Spike ever do work out the way he had planned it.

She steps inside the cave. The wind, that had been battering her all day, vanished as if it was too afraid of whatever lived inside these dank tunnels to enter. For the first time since beginning on this quest of hers she begins to doubt what she is here to do. Snarling at herself she pushes the emotion down, not giving it even the slightest chance to take root.

She was here to accomplish one thing and one thing only. Return to life the one man who had proven time and time again that he loved her. The one man who had never abandoned her. The one man she had truly loved, but had been fool enough, to push away every single time he had proclaimed his love for her, through either word or deed.

Taking a few steps into the dark, cavernous tunnel. She feels a cool, dark breeze caress her exposed flesh. It was like the touch of something repugnant settling over her skin. Brushing her disgust away she walks further into the darkness. "LURKY!" She shouts after only a few more steps inside the tunnel, "I know you're here! I can feel slithering around!"

__

Her blood burns in her veins, pounds in her skull as she runs with everything she has, trying desperately to reach Spike. Every breath she pulls into her lungs was pure agony, every step she takes was the greatest torture. It felt like she was dragging a pair of fully loaded greyhound buses along behind her. The harder she tries to run the heavier her legs feel, the heavier her legs feel the harder she tries run. It was a viscous cycle that she couldn't break herself out of.

She knows in her head that she is never going to reach Spike in time. She knows it, but her heart refuses to believe it. So she does the only thing she can do. She hopes, she prays, she demands that she be granted just one last miracle. That this time she wouldn't be forced to sacrifice the man she loves more then she thought she could possibly love someone. That there was another way to stop the events she had unwittingly set in motion.

She rounds the final corner, her blonde hair streaming out behind her, Spike's coat flaring around her as she runs. A thousand yards more before she'd reach Sunnydale High School, and the hellmouth within. Hope surges in her chest. She wasn't too late. She would be able to stop Spike and together they would find another way to keep hell from being released into the world.

White light flares from within the school. Buffy throws her arms in front of her eyes as she slams her eyelids shut while she throws herself to the ground. The light builds until its so bright it makes the sun seem like a flickering candle. Buffy feels the intense heat, like a thousand raging fires, wash over her, pressing her even deeper into the ground.

Time passes, minutes maybe hours. Buffy doesn't know, nor does she care, how long she lays on the ground before pushing herself back to her feet. The high school was gone, nothing stood there except for the grassy knoll it had been built upon. Numbly she begins to walk forward, forcing her exhausted legs to work through sheer force of will alone.

As she climbs the small hill the slayer knows she should be overjoyed. The hell mouth was gone. Never to be reopened again. To never be used as part of some plot to destroy the world. She knew she should be happy for that, and in the back of her mind she was, but the only thing she truly felt was a numbing sense of loss.

It was like the most vital piece of her had been ripped out. Left, discarded somewhere in the world for her to find. The only problem being that she had no desire to search for it. The most important person in her life, the one she never fully allowed in her life was gone. Along with him went her reason to care about the world he had saved. None of it mattered to her now that Spike was gone.

She reaches the top of the rather tiny hill. She felt Spike deserved a bigger memorial, something more befitting of the devil may care attitude he exuded throughout his unlife. In the center of the summit, at it's very apex sat a single blood red rose standing proudly above the short grass.

That was like the Spike she knew. Buffy can't surpress the smile that turns the corner of her lips upwards anymore then she can stop the tear that falls. As the first tear falls from her cheek she drops to her knees, the soft ground rushing up to meet her as more tears, a never ending flood, pour from her tightly sealed eyes. Throwing her head back and she screams at the sky letting emotions she had been damming up crash over her. Its a wail as wild and primordial as the world has ever heard before.

"What do you wish here, girl?" The large scorpion like demon known, by those who know of him, as Lurky demands in a sibilant whisper that causes a chill to dance its way down Buffy's spine. He was a blackness darker then the shadows he gathered around himself, his jade eyes glow banefully from out of his dark void. Spike had told her what Lurky looked like, what it felt like to be in his presence, but his words hardly did the actual feelings justice.

Buffy grinds her teeth remembering that she had to show this demon at least a modicum of respect. "I want Spike back," she answers hoping he took her loathing of him for deference.

The demon makes a kind of gurgling, hissing noise. "So this is the woman our dark champion lost himself to," it says with the same kind of sound emanating from his mouth. "A self-involved, impetuous, mortal, that has no idea what she desires."

Buffy has very little problem picking up on the disgust in his voice as he sneers at her. "I'm here to take your god damned trials," she spits at him. Stepping closer to him she doesn't bother to hide the disgust she feels at being in his presence. If he wasn't going to show her the respect she deserved for being the slayer then she wasn't going to bother with showing him the little she had been planning on. "That is what I desire," she growls at him.

"You have no idea what you desire..." he hisses shifting slightly.

Buffy cuts him off angrily, "if you don't start you test about now then my desire is going to be seeing your heart in my hand," she responds moving still closer to him.

He makes that gurgling noise again and Buffy finally realizes he's laughing at her. "It does not matter Slayer. Even if I wished it so, you could not take the trials."

Buffy glares at him becoming more irritated by the minute, "why?"

"You are human," he says putting as much disgust as he felt in the word. "Humans, by laws older then you can comprehend, are never allowed to take the trials." Buffy begins laughing at the hulking demon. "What do you find so amusing Slayer?"

"Slayers might appear human, but we're not. Not fully anyway," she says quietly having never told anyone before what she had seen in the land of the shadow men. "Our power comes from a source as dark as your own. If you don't believe me read my mind. See what I've seen," she finishes in a voice far calmer then she feels.

Buffy can almost feel thin, sponge like tentacles slithering around inside her skull as Lurky does little more then stare at her. She wants to nothing more then run and hide as he rummages around inside her head, sifting through her memories. She feels more exposed, vulnerable then she has at any other time in her life. It is not a feeling that she likes. It makes her queasy, like she wants to empty her stomach all over the cave floor. Lurky chuckles again, "very well Slayer. Your trials shall begin now," he says with his cruel laugh.

A solid fist strikes her in the back of the head sending her smashing into the floor. Buffy rolls with the punch coming to her knees. She pivots slightly just barely managing to slip the kick that came at her head Buffy gets her first good look at her opponent. If not for the dark yellow skin, the little golden flares that flash within his eyes he could've passed for an almost eight foot tall human that spent his days lifting weights and waiting to kill people. She grabs the leg, attached to the foot that had just tried to kick, and rolls to the side causing her nearly human looking foe to crash to floor as she continues to roll to her feet. "That does it. You're off my Christmas card list now," she quips before sending her foot into her opponents ribs.

__

Buffy could feel them drawing closer to her. She didn't want to deal with them. She never wanted to deal with them again. For as long as she lived, however much time remained to her, she wanted nothing to do with her so called friends. The people who supposedly loved her unconditionally. So long as she did what they wanted, acted the way they thought she should act, behaved how they would have her behave.

Still, no matter how she bent, twisted, or tried to squeezed herself into their perfect little slayer mold, they abandon her as soon as things took a turn for the worst. When the darkness appeared poised to overwhelm them, to simply brush them out of it's way like the gnats they appeared to be. Sure they might be annoying but they were hardly dangerous.

So she knelt here on Spike's hill, in front of Spike's rose, with hot tears streaming down her cheeks, hoping beyond hope that they wouldn't find her. That somehow they just couldn't find her. That they simply wouldn't think to look for her here. At the mouth of hell where everything important always seems to happen. Her mouth quirks into a cold smile as she imagines them all becoming blithering idiots who couldn't find their way out of their own shadows.

Unfortunately they were here already. She can feel, hear, sense them as they all rush towards her. She doesn't know how, but somehow Giles is the first to reach the summit of the hill. Gasping and choking for air as he was, he had managed to beat everyone else to her.

Buffy didn't turn around, didn't want to acknowledge his presence. The presence of the man who had cost her everything she had ever wanted even if she had denied wanting it with nearly as much vehemence as he ever had. She didn't want her little fantasy interrupted.

Spike's head rested upon her knees as she gently ran her fingers through his platinum blonde hair as he recited poetry he had written just for her. While he was reading to her she would suddenly, spontaneously profess her love for him. She would use the big flowery words that he seemed to enjoy so much. She would beg his forgiveness for every cruel, viscous thing she had ever said, called, or done to him. He would sit up kneeling across from her, with a single tear trickling down his cheek because of how moved he was by her impassioned plead. He would pull her into his arms. Gazing deep into her eyes he would see her sincerity, something she had never once before shown him. For the first time ever they would meet as equals. Spike slowly, almost terrified that this is just another one of his delusions, Buffy nearly as hesitant trying her hardest not to rush him, not wanting to force him into anything he was not ready for. Not wanting to take advantage of him in any way. Wanting this to be as much about his needs as it is about hers. When their lips finally meet, several long drawn out seconds later, it surpasses everything she has ever experienced before. It would be like comparing the heat from a flickering candle to the roiling heart of the sun. One burns. The other incinerates in a thousandth of the time it takes an eye to blink. Death before you even realize you are dead. The kiss would go on forever as their bodies began grinding, writhing together. Moving as one to form an even more intimate, more passionate...

Giles hand touching her shoulder snaps her out of her vivid dream. She could still feel Spike moving around her, his ghost like fingers grazing her skin, sending shivers burning along her entire body. She rises to her feet, twirling on the man who, at one time, she had thought of as her father, Spike's duster flaring around her as she faces the watcher. Giles stumbles back a step as he sees the blinding fury twisting Buffy's face into a mask of rage. There was no real way for him to describe the anger, hatred, and animosity he saw burning within her eyes.

In a move she picked up from Dawn watching far too much WWE Buffy slams the eight foot tall, yellow skinned demon down on her knee snapping his back as easily as she would a maple two by four. Tightening her grip on his ankle she spins around as she rises to her feet. Swinging him much as a baseball player would swing a bat, she bashes his head into one of the caverns granite walls, his head explodes like a rotten watermelon hit with a baseball bat. As Buffy finishes her spin she releases his ankle and the now headless demon sails down the tunnel until he finally crashes into a wall somewhere.

"Come on!" Buffy shouts into the caverns as she uses the back of her hand to wipe blood off her upper lip. Weather its her blood or the demon's she doesn't really know, nor does she care. "Spike said these trials were suppose to be tough! Something to really get the blood pumping! Back in Sunnydale that wouldn't even be classified as a light workout ," she gloats. Granted touching the demon was like keeping her hand inside the heart of a raging blast furnace, but that was nothing compared to the rage she felt boiling inside her. "If that's the best you got you might as well give me what I want now and save yourself the embarrassment!"

__

Giles places his glasses back on over his eyes as Buffy continues to stare at him. Since rising to her feet she has yet to make another move. She simply watches him, still as a statue, much as a rattle snake watches a mouse, waiting for the slightest movement before finally striking with deadly precision killing it's prey.

The old watcher doesn't know how long they've stood were the high school had been less then an hour ago. All he knows is that since Buffy turned those hard, blazing eyes on him he has felt like a man literally living on borrowed time. Clearing his throat seems to snap himself out of the spell he had been under, as if the sound somehow set the world in motion again.

"The First is gone," he says softly. Buffy flinches slightly at his words, a barely perceptible move that Giles spots. Not truly understanding the significance he simply assumes Buffy has broken out of her funk and was now ready to get down to the business at hand. "It seems that you've somehow managed to avert yet another apocalypse." He continues as he glances around at where the school had been, "you really must tell me how you pulled this one off."

Because he's not looking at her he doesn't see Buffy almost crumple at his words before she hardens herself, giving the rage she feels a place to blossom and grow within her. Not her heart because her heart belongs to Spike. It will always belong to Spike for as long as she lives. No matter what happens Spike will be the only thing that will ever touch her heart again. There are other places inside her though, places dank, dark, and devoid of everything that her rage will feel right at home growing within. Consuming everything else within her.

"I assume Spike is gone," Giles states turning back towards her.

For the first time Buffy notices a dark bruise decorating his right cheek. Not that she cares, but for some reason she thinks it should be important. "Yeah," she says in a voice barely heard above the soft breeze. "Spike's gone."

Giles nod, relived that Buffy had been able to bring herself to kill the blonde vampire that had tried to bring the world to ruins. "There are still other's out there, minions of the first that are more then willing to sacrifice everything to bring the First back. We have to put everything we have into hunting them down and obliterating them while they're still in disarray. Before they have time to reorg..."

He hits the ground as if he had just parachuted out of a plane and forgot to put his parachute on. His entire body aches as he tries to draw breath, his head spins, the force of the impact seems to have driving him deep into the soft earth as he wonders what had happened to send him crashing to the ground with such force. A minute, maybe more pass before his eyes focus in on Buffy towering over him. Once again he realizes that despite her diminutive size a power like the world has never known before rages inside her. From the look in her eyes she has judged him and found him wanting.

The three demons Buffy had been fighting for several minutes were like nothing she had ever faced before, and she had faced quite a lot in her time as the slayer guarding the Hell Mouth. The green skinned demon whose hide was like steel plate towered over his two companions, thick bone crushing pincers had replaced his hands and forearms and a whip like scorpion tail, that snaps out faster then a bolt of lightening and with nearly as much warning, made him more dangerous then she'd like to admit. On a good day in Sunnydale he would have been enough of a challenge for her. Today he had friends.

Smaller then the other two, only a few inches taller then Buffy herself was a double katana wielding ninja demon garbed in dark red Pajama like clothes. His eyes, the only part of him that was visible, glowed with a dull red fire. For short periods of time he was able to move so fast he seemed to blur. It was only through a vast amount of luck that Buffy wasn't already dead by his blades. She already bore a shallow gash, just under her right rib cage. It stung, but she had gotten worse during her time in Sunnydale.

The last demon was bulky blue skin humanoid looking creature that moved with all the speed and grace of a plodding hippopotamus. His bulk and lack of maneuverability didn't make him any less dangerous then the other two. Stream rose from his hands. Not the warm kind of steam. This steam rose from the frigid cold that he exuded, a cold that froze whatever he managed to put his hands on.

Setting aside whatever fears were plaguing her Buffy allows her rage to fuel her just as she had been doing for these past two weeks. Her most dangerous opponent, out of the three, was ninja demon. With his speed and the skill he had with his swords, he could kill her before she knew she was in trouble. He had to be her primary objective while at the same time avoiding the other two members of the demon version of the nerd trio.

Shifting to the side slightly she avoids the stinger as it lashes out at her. She smiles seeing how Giles was trying to drive her into the waiting clutches of Giles. She moves in the same direction again and as the stinger continues to strike out at her again and again. Suddenly she rolls forward directly at Giles. As he strikes down at her in attempt to crush her with his heavy pincers her feet kick outwards propelling him the length of the cavern where he crashes into the far wall.

As she flips back to her feet, she just barely sees Giles move out of the corner of her eye. Blurring in too fast for even her eyes to follow. Using her instincts she knows she has time this perfectly. She knows she's going to take another injury but it doesn't matter as long as she can get her hands on him.

Instead of going in for the quick kill Giles decides he wants to play with her. She feels sting as the blade slices open a gash along her left shoulder just below collar bone. At the same time the other blade slides through her right thigh, the bloodied blade sticks out the back of her leg. She screams, more in rage then at the searing pain she feels at her new wounds. Her left hand grabs hold of Giles' right forearm turning the bones to powder with a savage, crushing squeeze of her hand. 

Her right fist smashes into Giles' face knocking him off his feet. Maintaining his grip on the hilt of his sword he pulls the blade back out of her leg. She barely feels what would ordinarily be mind numbing pain as her fist smashes into Giles' chest shattering ribs. Giles tries to swing his sword at her in an attempt to drive her off. Its a feeble attempt as Buffy grabs his left arm and pulls him up as she drives her head down. Her forehead slamming into his face pulverizes the bones within turning them to mush. Her hands reach down, grabbing him by the chin and back of his head. With one quick tug she rips Giles' head from his shoulders. She snarls, in disappointment, as the head in her hand reverts back to it's true appearance. Ignoring the blood that has splattered over her she tosses the head into the corner of the chamber as she turns to face the two remaining demons.

__

With a savage snarl Buffy hauls Giles' battered body out of the indentation her fist had caused him to make. Holding onto the lapels of his jacket she keeps the old man from collapsing to the ground. "It's over, I'm done!" She screams at him while he shakes in her grip. "Maybe if you's had helped me, helped us, none of this would have happened. Instead you turn your backs me, abandon me, betray me, left me alone and isolated. If I had had your support, your trust maybe I wouldn't've been susceptible to the First, maybe Spike would still be here. Instead all you gave me was your disdain, your contempt, your scorn." She sees the confusion in Giles' face at her comment and remembers he doesn't know anything that transpired between her and Spike during their last encounter. Hauling him closer to her, bringing his ear within inches of her mouth. "You wanna know what stopped the apocalypse? Why we aren't being over run by hordes of demons at this very moment? Hugh, do you? Do you really want to know?" She hisses into his ear with a voice full of venom.

Giles terrified like he's never felt terror before feebly nods his head as he croaks out his answer, "yes." He barely manages as he still has problems drawing oxygen into his strained lungs.

"Spike stopped your bloody apocalypse!" She snarls at him, "he walked in there knowing he was going to die. He stopped what I started. I don't know how, but he stopped it..."

"Dawn's blood," Giles says into her tirade.

She grabs hold of the Giles' whip like tail as the stinger shoots past her head. A large, bloody scrape decorates her forehead just below her hairline. There's a immense purple bruise along her right cheek. She twirls the rope like tail like a lasso as she redirects the venomous point. Buffy grins mirthlessly as the stinger pierces Giles' left eye. The orb pops as the razor sharp tip puncture it's thin surface. It oozes a viscous, milky white substance that flows with the speed of tree sap in January. He howls, like a wild beast, in pain and rage as his massive, freezing hands clasp around the thin tail turning the delicate flesh to ice in an instant.

Giles roars as the brittle ice shatters as his tail retracts. Giles drops to one knee as his right hand covers his eye. A harsh cracking, popping sound emanates from under his hand, like a tremendous chunk of glacial ice breaking away from the main body. When Giles removes his hand from his head the ruined eye has been frozen over.

Buffy grimaces at the display before she rolls forward. Grabbing the two katanas that were lying on the ground she comes up to one knee hurling the sword at Giles' chest. The blade flies true slamming into his heart. Unfortunately the wound froze over almost as soon as it was made. She leaps up and over Giles twisting in midair to land behind his back but facing him. With one quick, clean sweep of the blade she severs Giles' head from his shoulders. As the creature hits the ground it shatters like an ice-sculpture dropped from an incredible height. Buffy looks down at the now bladeless katana hilt that she holds in her hand. Shrugging she drops the useless weapon.

__

"Wouldn't you have felt like the biggest fool in the world?" Buffy malicious voice mockingly hisses into Giles' ear. "If you had actually managed to kill Spike like you and Wood planned. Who would've stopped your bloody apocalypse then? Who would've been able to stop me? You, Wood?" She snarls feeling her anger reaching levels within her that she never knew existed before. "None of you's would've stood a chance against me. Spike was the only one that had never betrayed me, he was the only one that could bring me back from the abyss everyone left me in, and now he's gone. He died so the rest of us can live. Don't you ever let me hear you say his name like he's the filth you wipe of the bottom of your shoes again!" She shouts, spittle flying from her mouth as her temper threatens to sweep her over the edge. "In fact don't ever let me hear you say his name again," she finishes tossing him to the ground. _Without a backward glance at her one time friend she strides down the grassy hillside intent on finding some way to take the pain away, Spike's duster billows around her even though the very bottom of the coat drags across the ground._

Using Giles' left pincer arm like a club Buffy bashes away at his head. After nearly half a dozen minutes of pounding away his steel like flesh with no visible damage inflicted despite her phenomenal preternatural strength Buffy had decided on another approach to killing Giles. Rip off a limb and beat him to death with it, which was exactly what she was now doing. She felt it was poetic in way. After all when he was younger he had been known as Ripper.

"You lousy, self-serving, impertinent bastard," she growls at Giles. "What the hell gives you the right to tell me how to live my life? Who the hell do you think you are that you can lecture me about tough choices? You've never had to make a choice in your entire life. The council decides everything for you. Do this Giles, do that. Don't do that, it's not permitted. No, you cannot think for yourself. You must fellow council doctrine. Human good, demon bad. There is never any variation, so decrees the council of idiots who managed to get their tweed clad asses blown to hell."

After every statement the heavy, rock like arm smashes into his face. Each strike is harder, more forceful then the last. Each statement more rage driven then the one before. Each time her statement comes closer and closer to sounding like an animalistic snarl then actual human speech.

"It is over," Lurky's voice booms throughout the vast cavern.

Buffy gasps slightly as she looks down at Lobster Hand's cracked body. "That's it?" Buffy questions as she drops the heavy arm next to the now dead owner. Swiveling her head around her eyes lock on Lurky standing in a crevice in the wall she was sure hadn't been there earlier. "Your calling it quits, after that?" She inquires suspiciously. Spike made these trials out to the hardest thing he had ever experienced, next to being in love with her. "I couple of lousy fights and you're giving up? Doesn't sound like the Lurky I've heard about."

Lurky laughs at her again, "the battle is done tiny slayer. Your trial, however, has yet to begin."

Buffy begins to walk towards him, "so this was what, prelims? Something to entertain you?" She demands highly provoked by his words.

When her foot hits the dust covered floor on her third step: intense, excruciating, agonizing, mind numbing pain explodes around her. In her. Encompassing her entire being. Every single millimeter of her body feels as if it dying the most horrible, ghastly death she has ever envisioned and many she has never dreamt possible, over and over again at the speed of thought and so slowly they take an eternity.

"Now your trial begins little slayer," Lurky's voice says from inside her head. "All you need do to have your desire fulfilled slayer is reach me," he mocks.

Pushing aside as much of the pain as she can. She once again locks her eyes in on Lurky. He becomes her entire world. Nothing else exist except for him and her need to get to him. She screams, howls, with every fiber of her being. A sound of pure primordial fury that while not be denied. With that she takes a single step forward.

__

Buffy brushes her way past Willow, Xander, Wood, and a handful of potential slayer without a care over their shocked gasps or incredulous stares. She was tired of their questions of having to listen to their nonsensical, disjointed rambling of how Spike had gone evil, beaten them and drank enough blood from Dawn that she had almost died. She was tired of all of it and she was tired of caring about what anybody thought.

She had spent too much of her life caring about what everyone else thought of her. It was time she started doing things for herself. Besides she knew if she didn't get away from Xander as quickly as possible she'd take his other eye then end his life because he opened his mouth and words came out of it.

It was time she started living for herself. Only with Spike she didn't really have much of a reason to do anything. What she wanted was Spike, but Spike was dead, but it didn't stop her from wanting him. If there was only someway she could get him back.

With the suddenness of a lightening strike she remembers a conversation she had with Spike only a few months ago. He had told her a story about a demon in Africa that granted wishes, gave people what they truly desired. The problem Spike claimed was most people didn't know what they wanted so they normally didn't get what they thought they wanted. Plus the life and death trials usually kept Lurky from having to actually give the person what they wanted on account of them being dead.

A smile spread over her lips as she realized she was going to be getting her Spike back. There was absolutely nothing in the world that was going to be able to prevent her from getting to Africa. There was no trial Lurky could throw at her that she wouldn't be able to defeat.

It was then that she saw Dawn rushing towards her having broken away from Faith. She stiffens as the younger girl crashes into her, throwing her arms around her sister and squeezing for all she was worth. "Oh my god," she cries not noticing Buffy's reaction.

She wishes she could embrace Dawn like the younger girl deserves, but she can't. Dawn was family. She had died for her, would've died again and again to keep her safe. Dawn had repaid her love by kicking her out of their home, by sending her away when everyone else had turned their collective backs on her.

"I was so worried about you," she rushes on. "What, with Spike attac..."

"I'm leaving," Buffy cuts in coldly as she easily breaks Dawn's grip on her.

Dawn blinks, surprised at Buffy's statement. "Where are we going?" She asks skeptically.

Buffy shakes her head. She hated having to hurt Dawn like this, no matter how much she might deserve it, but there was no way she could take her little sister with her on a perilous quest to Africa where the chances of her dying were quite possibly better then even. "We're not," she finally answers. "I am," she adds turning frost blue eyes on her sister. "You made your choice, now live with it," the slayer finishes viscously rationalizing her actions as being in the best interest of Dawn. It was better for her sister if she hated her. She'd be able to get on with her life faster that way.

Buffy's face twist into a snarl as hundreds of thousands volts of electricity course over and through her body. Every single step she took was a grand tour of more pain then she ever thought she could possible experience and still live. Her bones felt as if they had been ground to powder ages ago, her flesh seemed to be eating it's way off her body from the inside. She had long ago given up on trying to push the pain away from her. Instead she was embracing the agony that was making its home in her body, using it to further fuel her fury.

Between one step and the next everything vanishes. The pain, the energy, everything was just gone as she staggers forward, almost collapsing onto the hard rock floor of the cavern. Smoke still rose from her as she leant her shoulder against the tunnel wall. Gasping for breath, like she had just finished running a thousand miles at full speed, she pivots her body putting her back to the hard surface.

"So does the tiny slayer still think my trials the stuff of jokes?" Lurky whispers as he shifts from one side to the other in front of her. His darkness gliding with him as he moves.

Summoning what little reserves she has left Buffy pushes herself off the wall. Taking one hesitant step after another she walks up to Lurky. "When we're done here, if you don't give me what I came here for I'm going to kill you," she softly threatens the ancient and powerful demon. "Are we clear on that?"

"As clear as your own heart," Lurky responds with his harsh hissing laughter echoes loudly throughout the cavernous tunnels. "It shall be as you wish it Slayer." With those words Buffy vanishes from Lurky's cave.

__

"What the hells wrong with you B?" Faith demands of Buffy as she steps in front of the older slayer. "Trashing your friends, cutting into your sister like you just did. This isn't like you."

"I quite," Buffy says quietly as she looks up at the taller girl. She isn't too surprise to see shock in the brunette's eyes. "I'm done, saving the worlds your job now. Hope you have better luck at it then I did," she continues placing her hand on Faith's shoulder. "Don't let it destroy you."

Faith shakes her head, "you can't just quite," she argues. "You were called just like me, sacred birthright and all... That," she finishes disconcerted by Buffy laughing. "What the hell's so funny B?" She questions angrily.

"You're the slayer Faith," Buffy responds ignoring her question. "Keep the world safe or do whatever the hell you want I don't really care. Now if you don't get out of my way one of those unfortunate young girls back there is going to be the Slayer."

Faith takes a hard look into the blondes ice blue eyes. Once upon a time looking into those eyes was like seeing all the hope of the world. Now there is a hardness more frightening then anything she has ever seen before. She takes a step to the side to give Buffy what she wants.

Buffy takes a step forward coming even with Faith. Stopping she turns to catch the brunettes dark eyes, "take care of her," she says turning her head just a little bit farther back to see Dawn staring at the two of them. Faith's eyes follows Buffy though she makes no outward sign of looking at Dawn. "She needs someone and so don't you, and... I could never give you what you needed, what you deserve, but she can. She can love you like... Just take care of each other," she finishes.

With that she takes another step forward, then another, and another quickly follows. From behind her Faith shouts, "where're you going?"

"There's a demon I gotta see," she whispers.

______________________________________________________________________________

With You There to Help Me - Jethro Tull

In days of peace --   
sweet smelling summer nights   
of wine and song;   
dusty pavements burning feet.   
Why am I crying, I want to know.   
How can I smile and make it right?   
For sixty days and eighty nights   
and not give in and lose the fight.   
I'm going back to the ones that I know,   
with whom I can be what I want to be.   
Just one week for the feeling to go --   
and with you there to help me   
then it probably will.   
  
I won't go down   
acting the same old play.   
Give sixty days for just one night.   
Don't think I'd make it: but then I might.   
  
I'm going back to the ones that I know,   
with whom I can be what I want to be.   
Just one week for the feeling to go --   
and with you there to help me   
then it probably will.   


______________________________________________________________________________

Goodbye To You - Michelle Branch

Of all the things I've believed in,   
I just want to get it over with,   
tears form behind my eyes,   
but I do not cry,   
counting the days that pass me by.   
  
I've been searchin' deep down in my soul;   
words that I'm hearin' are starting to get old,   
it feels like I'm starting all over again,   
The last three years were just pretend,   
and I said...   
  
Goodbye to you,   
goodbye to everything I thought I knew,   
You were the one I loved,   
the one thing that I tried to hold onto.   
  
I still get lost in your eyes,   
and it seems that I can't live a day without you,   
closing my eyes,   
and you chase my thoughts away,   
to a place where I am blinded by the light,   
but it's not right.   
  
Goodbye to you,   
goodbye to everything I thought I knew,   
You were the one I loved,   
the one thing that I tried to hold on to.   
  
Ooh whoa....   
and it hurts to want everything and nothing at the same time,   
I want what's yours and I want what's mine,   
I want you,   
but I'm not giving in this time.   
  
Goodbye to you,   
goodbye to everything I thought I knew,   
You were the one I loved,   
the one thing that I tried to hold onto   
Goodbye to you, (goodbye to you)   
goodbye to everything I thought I knew, (goodbye to you)   
You were the one I loved,   
the one thing that I tried to hold onto,   
(the one thing that i tried to hold onto)  
the one thing that I tried to hold onto.   
(the one thing that i tried to hold onto)  
  
Oh, oh whoa, oh, oh (one thing that i tried to hold onto)   
and when the stars fall I will lie awake,   
you're my shooting star. 


	2. Chap 1: Be With You

__

Chapter One: Be With You

Spike sits peaceably in the chair he was tied to. The ropes were a bit tight for his liking, but since he didn't have to worry about his circulation being cut off he didn't feel a need to complain. Besides if he did begin to gripe about the situation then there was every possibility the Slayer and her pals would once again chain him back up in the porcelain bathtub. A fate to be avoided at all cost.

So he allowed the too tight ropes. It wasn't like he couldn't smash the wooden chair to splinters anyway if the need arose. He smirks slightly at the thought of how stupid the slayer's friends were. Concerned about the trouble he might cause they insisted on keeping him tied up, yet they chose something he could destroy simply by flexing if he so desired. Again it was something he wasn't going to bring up because it would mean him going back to being chained up in the bathtub from hell. Not to mention having to put up with the ridicule and disdain from people who should, by all rights, be terrified of him.

Plus it would also mean isolation, a state Spike didn't like existing in. After all the Big Bad, despite being something of a malcontent and a rebel, enjoyed interacting with others. Human, demon didn't matter much to him as long as they were an interesting group, and if he could say nothing else about the Slayer's little toadies, they were an amusing lot.

Demon girl said what was on her mind, whatever was on her mind, and convention be damn. Some of the things that came out of the girls mouth were near enough to make him blush, if he had actually had a complexion. Harris, the whelp, was a right bloody viscous bastard in Spike's opinion. He almost hid it most of the time. Not well enough to fool a master vampire, but as far as his friends were concerned he was the definition of a true blue friend. Spike hoped, for everyone's sake, the boy never got turned. He just knew, deep in his gut, that Harris would make a vampire the likes of which Angelus would be proud to call kin. Red on the other hand had a pair of brass bowling balls hidden up her knickers, though she rarely pulled them out. He seen them twice though, once at the burnt out factory, and again just a few weeks ago when he had shown up at the Slayer's dorm room.

Spike still wasn't sure if he would have turned her, killed her, or only taken a little and left her alive for the Slayer to find. A little message that he could have. Of course those damn bloody wankers had already shoved the sodding chip in his head making him an even bigger joke then when he was alive.

The Slayer herself was the cause of all his problems. Ever since he had come to this cursed town searching, not just for her, but anything that would help bring his dark princess, Drusilla, back to her former glory. The Slayer he had been expecting. His great pofter of a grandsire he hadn't, and didn't care if he never saw him again now that he was gone. He had been hoping the mystical energies the permeated Sunnydale would do the trick of restoring her. While they slowed her decline they didn't halt her descent. Spike had tried everything he could think of, only ever time the Slayer had been there; foiling his every plot, destroying his well thought out schemes, ruining every hope he had of achieving Drusilla's eventual recovery.

He had had chances to kill the girl, more then he cared to count, but something always managed to distract him from adding a third slayer to his trophy bag. First it was the chit's mother, then her friends, even Angelus, the good for nothing ponce that he was, had helped save her. That wasn't the way things worked.

Slayer's were suppose to be alone fighting the forces of darkness. They weren't suppose to have a support team. The occasional ally Spike could understand, but a group of people that dedicated themselves to helping the Slayer was unnatural as far as Spike was concerned. It was suppose to be a one on one fight may the better man win, and the loser die. That was how it should be. That was the natural order of things according to the laws of Spike.

Granted there was always the watcher. Rarely, if ever, did they actually get their hands dirty by becoming involved in the battles their charges, their slayers fought. Their primary excuse for being there was to research all the big bads their slayer came across, to train them in their war, and to record the slayer's life making sure it was all neatly catalogued for future reference.

Of course if he had killed the girl all those years ago he wouldn't of had the pleasure of feeling her tight, lithe body pressed against his just a few short hours ago. The way her slim, soft, and oh so delicate hands had light a trail of fire wherever they had touched along his alabaster skin. If he concentrated he could still feel the tiny electrical jolts coursing through his dead body making him feel almost alive. He could still taste her peach flavored lip gloss along with something else that was distinctively all Slayer.

He knew it was wrong to want to feel her body molded against his. She was Buffy Summers, the Slayer. He was Spike, a master vampire, the slayer of Slayers. He should be wanting to feel her hot, salty blood pouring down his throat not listening to her moan as he gently nipped and suckled the front of her throat with his blunt human teeth while her short nails sent shivers up his spine as they dug small furrows in his back.

Willow walks around Giles over to Buffy who, standing at Giles' counter, continued glaring at Spike, "eat a cookie. Ease my pain," she pleads with her best friend.

Buffy shifts her glance of the blonde vampire to her friend, a slight smile settling on her lips as she plucks a cookie from the tray. "Mm, better?" She inquires as she takes a big bite out of the cookie.

At the sound of Buffy's soft moan Spike feel his body tremble at the memory of her touch as they had explored each other's body during their heated make out sessions. Roughly he pushed the sensation back down. It was a strain, and he found himself needing to take an otherwise unneeded breath as he regained control of his body. He needed to find something to take his mind of what should have been disgustingly disturbing thoughts about himself and the Slayer. 

Willow shrugs, a small uplifting of her shoulders, "well baking lifts about thirty percent of my guilt but only seven percent of my inner turmoil," she answers setting the tray on the counter. "Guess that'll just take awhile."

"It'll happen," the blonde assures her friend.

The smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies were heavy in the air from Willow's attempt to bake away the guilt she felt over her recent actions. It wasn't quite the aroma of blood, fear, and agonizing pain he was hoping for but it would do in a pinch. "Don't I get a cookie?" He pushes, in as friendly of a voice as he can manage with those particular images of him and Buffy- nuzzling, kissing, cuddling- still floating in his head.

"No," Buffy emphatically states.

"Well I gotta have something. I still have Buffy taste in my mouth," he gripes loudly. Not that he really cared that he could still taste the Slayer in his mouth. That alone was disturbing enough that he once again felt the need to suppress any thought related to the blonde slayer only a dozen feet away.

Buffy's glare intensifies as she spits out, "you're a pig Spike."

"Yeah, well at least I'm not the one who wanted Wind Beneath My Wings for our first dance," Spike ruthlessly informs the entire group with the desired results of shutting everybody up in one fell swoop as they all turn to look at Buffy. Just a little reminder that they had done far more then argue and disagree about everything. They had done more then the heavy make out sessions all of her friends had been witness to. There were a few times they had actually talked to each other. Of course they had been between gropes and feels and long, drown out, passionate, tongue dueling kisses.

The look of stunned horror, as she remembers everything that they had actually talked about, washes over her face. Spike smiles evilly at her despite the fact that there is now the very real possibility the Slayer just might stake him rather then risk him revealing her deepest, darkest secretes to her friends. He had just reminded her that while he might be defanged he was far from being the hapless creature they saw him as. "That was the spell," she defends herself to her friends. Feeling her cheeks redden slightly she walks into the kitchen to get away from everyone's stare.

Suddenly he felt a large chocolate chip cookie shoved into his mouth as Willow decided it was better to give up a cookie then let Spike say anything else that might hurt Buffy. Spike didn't care why he was getting the cookie. He was just glad he got that instead of the stake. Now if he could just figure how to get a nice hot mug of blood, life would have been as close to perfect as it could be given his present circumstances.

After shoving the cookie into Spike's mouth Willow quickly followed Buffy into the kitchen. "Did I mention about the sorry part?" Willow inquires sounding twice as guilty as she had just a moment earlier.

Taking a quick glance around the room and the people occupying it at the moment he didn't think there was much chance of any of them doing him any favors. Sighing slightly Spike begins to munch on the cookie without dropping the smallest crumb.

"We may need a forgetting spell later," Buffy replies. She didn't know if it would be possible to go on living having to deal with all the residue emotions Willow's spell had left behind. "I loved him. We were betrothed," she admits to Willow unable to bring up the fact that she still had all those confusing feelings roiling in her stomach.

The restrained vampire can easily detect the slight tremble in the blonde's voice as she gives voice to her emotions. Spike senses Red's displeasure. She had done something rather stupid and other people, people she cared about had almost paid the price for it. "Well at... At least you were getting along," she points out softly trying to find the tinniest bit of good in what she had done.

Spike almost felt sorry for the little witch. It was bad enough that dog-boy had up and left her for no good reason as far as Spike knew, not that anybody was telling him the sordid details of their lives, it was also the first time the witch had to experience somebody ripping her heart out and turning it to pulp right in front of her eyes. Spike could attest to how unpleasant of an experience that was. At least she had friends who cared about her, something he had lacked a hundred and twenty years ago.

"But we weren't," Buffy responds giving her head a slight shake. Spike's eyes widen fractionally at the lie that had just poured out of the Slayer's mouth. "I mean, I wasn't even nice. And the bad-boy thing — over it. Okay, I totally get it. I'd be really happy to be in a nice relationship with a decent, reliable... Oh my God! Riley thinks I'm engaged," a quick thought of her and Riley together flashes through her mind. He was just what she needed to get over whatever it was she was feeling towards the platinum blonde vampire.

Disgusted with herself she gives her head an imperceptible shake as she realizes what she was just thinking. That would be even worse then what Parker had done to her. Using someone just so she could deny what she was feeling, but if she got to know him first. Dated him, allowed a relationship to build up. Something she could throw herself into with everything she had.

Needing to get a gripe on herself she turns towards the back stairwell, "I need to freshen up," she tells Willow in a slight rush as she walks away. She knew she was being rude but at the moment she didn't care. She had to compose herself before she just blurted everything out because there was no way she was going to fall for Spike. He was as evil as vampires come, possibly worse. He was a soulless demon that wanted to kill her, that had killed two other slayers in less then a hundred years. Now if she continued to repeat that to herself over and over again she might just be able to forget the way he turned her insides to mush with the simplest glance.

Spike knew he had gotten to the prissy little blonde slayer and smirks around a mouthful of cookie. It didn't take him long however for him to feel Willow's heated glare on him. Plucking the cookie from his mouth with his long, poorly manicured, fingered hands, "something you want?" He inquires offhandedly, as if it was of no concern to him, as he looks over his chipped fingernails. He knew he was going to have to get his hands on some black nail polish some time soon, after all he did have a reputation to uphold.

"You could try being nicer," Willow emphatically informs him. "It wouldn't kill you, you know," she stammers slightly at the end as Spike looks up at her with cold blue eyes.

Spike's smirk deepens slightly as he scowls at the small redhead, "vampire here. Or'd you forget that little witch?" He asks letting a bit of his anger show. True he might feel sorry for her, but that didn't mean he liked the fact, or that he was going to forgive her anytime soon, for using some freaky mojo on him that made him fall in love with the Slayer. "Niceness isn't a trait us undead are known for," he pauses for a second as he remembers a few of the things Angelus had bragged about back in the day. "Know a few though who send roses, do the whole seduction of innocence thing. Personally I find it a bleeding waste of time. More of a brutal killer myself. Throw in a bloody massacre and I'm right at home," he finishes a gleeful smile plastered on his face.

Willow turns away from him in disgust. She walks back into the kitchen were her next batch of cookies were almost ready to be taken out of the oven. She just didn't understand Spike. His actions almost constantly contradicted his words, or vice versa. He would say one thing yet do something completely different. He acted like a vicious killer, a soulless demon constantly, but she knew that wasn't true, or at least suspected it wasn't the whole truth. There was probably a ton of information on Spike that wasn't written down in any watchers journals anywhere. Facts that only Spike, or possibly Drusilla, would know after more then century.

As soon as Willow's back was towards him Spike let the false smile fall from his lips as he brought the chocolate chip cookie back to his mouth. He bite into the pastry, and began diligently chewing despite the fact that the cooked dough now tasted like ash in his mouth. It was better this way though. He had that lesson driven home a hundred and twenty years ago, then later with Drusilla. There was no way he was going to make it again. Especially not with this group of wankers.

Gazing at the floor he could still almost hear the faint echo of laughter over the sounds of Giles' hasty scribble, or the slurping like noises coming from demon girl and the whelp, as their tender kissing verged on groping, over on Giles well worn couch. He could feel eyes on him again, heated, like the witches, only a thousand times more intense then the redheads glare. He also smelt sand, sweat, human blood, demon blood, himself and Buffy so mingled together that he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.

His head snaps up violently and there she is standing before him in all her beautiful, terrifying glory. "Bloody hell," Spike gasps taking in her appearance at a quick glance. He didn't know what had taken place in the few minutes she had been in the head, but she looked like she had been through one hell of a battle. Several dozen battles actually.

Her face was bruised, there were scratches and scrapes along her scalp, cheek, and chin that instead of detracting from her already stunning beauty only seemed to amplify it. Her normally sunkissed golden blonde hair was frizzled and charred at the ends, all of her clothing not to mention herself looked as if she had acted as a lightening rod during a massive electrical storm. Everything was charred and blackened. There was a long shallow gash along her right shoulder, another just below her left rib cage, plus a deep puncture through her right thigh that still oozed a small trickle of blood from both sides.

He had known those last few comments had been pushing his luck too far. Judging from the intense look in her eyes she had finally decided she'd had enough of him and was going to rid herself of his annoying, undead ass once and for all. She already had his coat on despite the fact it was obviously too large for her. Spike smiles at that, it was fitting in a way. He had taking it off the body of the last slayer he had killed, now the Slayer was reclaiming it.

Buffy can hardly believe it had worked. Spike was back. Her Spike was right in front of her with a look of awe shining in his light incandescent blue eyes. His black t-shirt was stretched taut against his lean muscular chest. She was just able to make out his defined muscles through the dark fabric. In the back of her mind she wonders where he had been, what he had been through vowing to help him recover no matter how long it took. That was for later. Now, though, there were pressing matters she needed to attend to. Matters that involved ripping that shirt off his body as quickly as possible so she could run her hands over his smooth, cool flesh. She smiles knowing it would only take a matter of seconds before she had his skin burning at her ever touch.

A maniacal grin splits the Slayer's face as the look in her eyes intensifies a thousand fold, and Spike knows the end is at hand. He had hoped he'd be able to fight, to go down swinging and the like, but that wasn't to be his fate. He was going to die here, a joke, a laughingstock, a neutered vamp tied to a bloody chair completely unable to defend himself. He glares at her, matching her stare for stare. He might not be able to fight back but he'd be damned if he was going to go out begging for his life.

Spike looks on the Slayer with awe as he prepares himself for the assault he knows is about to descend upon him. She was the personification of violence, sex, and death all rolled into one. He could smell it on her. He had never seen her looking more beautiful, more wanton, or desirable then she was at that moment. He could feel his body begin to respond to her just from gazing upon her.

In a way he was glad it her that was going to be ending his unlife. Out of all the creatures he had encountered over the century, all the battles he had fought, she was the only one he felt was worthy of killing him. "What're you waiting for Slayer?" He snarls at her as defiantly as he ever had.

"What was that?" Giles inquires of Spike, slightly annoyed the vampire hadn't spoken up louder in the first place. 

Hearing him speak was all Buffy needed to know that this wasn't just a desire driven hallucination. She lunges forward, grabbing him by his shirt, lifting him off the floor and shattering the chair he had been tied to so quickly he hadn't even seen her move. One moment he had been in the chair the next his back was very nearly pressed into the thick oaken front door of Giles' apartment. Somewhere after being lifted from the now splintered chair and before his back colliding with the hardwood door, he wasn't exactly sure where, her hot, moist mouth attach to his, her silken tongue demanding entry between his cool lips. At the same time she had somehow managed to get his shirt off in-between those two intervening moments. Her bruised and bloody hands were running over his bare skin as if she was trying to feel every inch of his body that she could at the same moment.

Giles turns his head just as the sound of his chair shattering reaches his ears. He barely catches the movement of Spike almost being driven through his door by what appears to be a very bedraggled, possibly even crazed Buffy.

Willow rushes out of the kitchen hearing the wooden chair splinter. Looking at the spot Spike had been she easily finds what was once a sturdy oak chair. Her eyes follow the remains of Spike's shredded black t-shirt, and freeze once she sees Buffy wearing Spike's duster slam the now shirtless vampire into Giles' door with enough force to rattle the frame. Naturally her first thought is that somehow her spell had gotten re-invoked, but then she sees the almost stunned look on Spike's face and she realizes he's just as surprised as she is.

Giles doesn't even see the remains of his chair, shattered beyond any means of repair, on the floor. For a brief moment he thinks Buffy, finally fed up with Spike, is going to end hers and everyone else's suffering. That line of speculation is quickly discarded as Buffy quite firmly mashes her body into Spike's as her mouth seeks his. It almost looks as if she trying to merge their two separate bodies into one. "Oh, bloody hell," he curses softly as he looks over at Willow. "Couldn't you have at least blinded me again? Seeing this spectacle is far worse then just having to listen it," he snarls at the young witch.

"They seem to be enjoying themselves," Anya comments in a heavy voice from her spot next to Xander on Giles' couch. Xander gapes slightly, eyes wide with disbelief, as he stares at Buffy attacking Spike with a fervor he's never seen on anyone before let alone the tiny blonde slayer. "We should probably take notes," she suggest seriously. Xander turns his head to look at Anya as if seeing her for the first time. "They're doing a much better job then we normally do, well actually Buffy is..."

"An," Xander's less then manly voice squawks.

Willow's eyes widen at Giles words, "this isn't me," she insisted. "I've been good. I've been baking. Baking lots of cookies, no magic, not even the hint of one tiny, little, itsy bitsy spell, just baking Willow here. That's all them, or at least all Buffy."

Buffy presses her body into his, grinding her thigh into his manhood as she straddles his leg. If the feel of her body against his wasn't enough to harden him instantly then the scent of her arousal was. He can't help the heated moan that escapes his lips. As they part slightly the Slayer's tongue delves into his mouth where it begins massaging his tongue, twirling, caressing, drawing it out of his mouth back into hers. Once there she begins suckling on the appendage stroking it with her tongue taking as much into her mouth as she can, as if she was giving his tongue a blow job.

His penis jumps in his pants as he realizes what she's doing him. Weather she's able to read his mind or just his body he doesn't know. Nor does he care overly much as she drives her thigh into his crotch firmly, to the point where pleasure and pain become the same thing. He feels his body go rigid as her ministrations drive him over the edge causing him to orgasm blowing his load in his own pants like an untried schoolboy that he hasn't been in nearly a century and a quarter.

Xander looks to over to Willow as he stands from the couch, "could, you know, make us all blind now? So we don't have to watch."

Giles glances at Willow with a slight look of remorse as he removes his glasses. Willow knew it was about as close as Giles was going to come to apologizing to her. "Obviously some kind of spell is impairing her judgement, making her act irrationally."

"How come we never make out like that in front of your friends?" Anya asks standing up next to Xander. "Buffy doesn't seem to have any problems with enthusiastic forms of affection in public."

Xander looks at her slightly horrified at her suggestion. "An, we've had this discussion about what's appropriate and what's not so. That," he says pointing at Buffy and Spike, "definitely falls in the not so appropriate category."

"That's too bad," Anya says with a slight frown. "Having sex in a public place without anybody knowing is highly arousing which results in much more intense orgasms. Just look at Spike."

Xander gapes for a second before he snaps his mouth close. "We'll talk about it later," he finally answers causing Anya to smile triumphantly.

Shocked, amazed, stunned by what just happened, plus the fact that he hadn't lost an once of hardness under the Slayer's skilled touch, Spike finally pulls his mouth away from hers. He bangs his head back against the door panting for much unneeded oxygen, "sodding hell... You bloody little chit, have you... Lost your sod offed mind," he gasps out at her between labored pants. Somewhere inside his head his rational mind wonders what the hell is going on. 

That stops however as thought, rational or otherwise, much less speech, become a sudden problem for Spike as he feels the Slayers teeth on his neck breaking the skin causing a small trickle of blood to flow down his throat. For the second time in half a minute his body becomes rigid and shakes as he lets out a low moan. "Sweet bloody hell Slayer," he groans as he feels his legs turn to a rubbery like substance and the only reason he doesn't slide to the floor is because the Slayer has him pinned to the wall.

Buffy stares at her reflection in the mirror just as she had been for the last several minutes. She had forgotten just how much her and Spike had actually talked while they were under the effects of Willow's spell. It wasn't really forgetting though. It was more like shoving everything involved with the incident out of her mind because if she thought about any part of it she would remember just how safe and protected she had felt snuggled into Spike's strong yet surprisingly gentle arms. She would be forced to remember just how much love she felt radiating outwards from Spike during their passion filled kisses, soft and yielding on the surface yet burning, almost raging with a desperate fire that was just barely touched.

She didn't understand how Spike could get to her so easily. He was everything she fought against, everything she was suppose to hate, a soulless demon, a viscous killer with no remorse for his actions. Yet she was drawn to him. No matter how much she tried to deny it she was and it terrified her. Nobody had ever made her feel like before; not Pike, Owen, Angel, Scott, Parker, or Riley. None of them had ever evoked those intense emotions that the bleached blonde menace to society, also known as Spike, had. The only person that had ever come close to making her feel that free before had been Faith and the times they had simply cut loose at the bronze dancing the night away. 

She had already been down that road before and her friends had suffered for it. Falling in love with a vampire who eventual turned on her. It had taken her months before she finally resolved herself to the fact that Angel was well and truly gone. That she was never going to get back the man she loved with all the innocence of sixteen year old girl. That the only thing that remained of Angel was the beast that wore his face.

All the while her friends lived in constant fear of what Angelus was going to do to them. More then a few had even died because she hadn't been able to bring herself to do what she knew she had to do. Each and every time he made sure she knew he was the cause of their death, and each and every time she felt like she was the one who had killed them. All because she couldn't do what needed doing right from the beginning.

She had her shot right after the Judge. She had beaten him, but she couldn't stake him. That one decision had cost so many people their lives, people that should have lived if she had just been able to do what she had been called to do. It was one of the few decisions that she truly regretted making. Not that she wouldn't make the same decision again, which was something else that frightened her.

Especially now with what she was feeling towards Spike, the desires he evoked within her with hardly any effort at all on his part. It was like he had absolutely no idea as to what he did to her. Something she was extremely grateful for because she didn't know if she would be able to resist his advances, despite his somewhat limited charms, if he knew. She just knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that if he knew then he would try to press the issue.

No matter how much she wanted to just let herself go she couldn't. She couldn't put her friends through that again, couldn't subject them to the: anxiety, apprehension, fear, dread- of waiting for Spike's chip to breakdown or fail. Then have to wait for her to come to grips with the fact that another one of her lovers had become a brutal killer that she couldn't stake until the fate of the world hung in the balance. Something that wouldn't happen because, unlike Angelus, Spike would never jeopardize his happy meals on legs.

That only left her with one option. Crushing every single feeling she had for the bleach blonde vampire that was now as harmless as any newborn kitten. Crush them, burn them, bury the ashes so deep in her subconscious that they would never again find the light of day. Replace everything she felt with one simple mantra: Spike is evil. Spike is a soulless disgusting thing. Spike is a heartless creature with no feelings. Spike would gladly kill you and all of your friends. Repeat as often as needed, and if at all necessary insult or beat as ruthlessly as possible. Feeling confident with the mask she had draped over herself she turns away from the mirror, pulls open the door, and steps out onto the back hall.

"Shouldn't we be like trying to stop them?" Xander's whining voice drifts down the hall to her. "Separate them or something?"

She could almost see Giles scowl as he retorts, "be my guest. Go right ahead and separate them."

"Maybe we could like throw heavy objects at them," Willow suggest. "Ohh, books. We have lots of books and they're really heavy, we could throw books at them... Or maybe not," she finishes softly, almost in shame.

"We aren't throwing any books at them," Giles responds briskly if slightly exasperated.

"It's too bad you watchers are so stuffy you don't believe in modern technology. If you had a camcorder here we could make an instructional video that we could sell on the..."

"Hey guys," Buffy says cutting Anya off as she reaches the kitchen divider. Everybody's head, except for Anya's, swivels towards her so quickly she thinks the entire group has likely given themselves whiplash. That's before they turn to look back towards Giles' front door, then back to her. "What's up?" she inquires as she steps into the pallor to see what has everybody so freaked out.

"Isn't this interesting," Anya muses as she slowly swivels her head to look at Buffy then back at the front door.

"But," Xander begins but stops as he quickly looks back and forth between Buffy and Buffy. "That's. How. But," he continues as he tries to figure things out in his own head.

Giles almost smiles before his slight scowl returns, "I knew something was amiss," he states actually sounding happy.

Her gaze stops as soon as she spots Spike pinned against Giles' door by some cheap hussy with bad hair and even worse fashion sense. Everything she had just been telling herself in Giles' bathroom flies out the window, she can almost hear the glass shatter and sprinkle to the ground below, as the only image her mind picks up is that there is some strange woman running her hands over Spike's body. A body that is hers alone to touch. That strange lips were tasting skin that was only Buffy's to taste.

Her mind stops registering what the people around her are saying so she never hears Giles telling her that the thing mauling Spike is some type of Buffy doppelganger. She strides forward, her only intent to bodily remove the tramp who would dare touch what was her. A small smile plays across her lips as she imagines the trollop trying to fight back against her. That smile turns to furious scowl as she hears the small groan escape from between Spike's lips.

Spike was completely enjoying the form of death the slayer had chosen for him. He didn't know if it was possible, but he more then thought it was likely, for him to combust from the fire the Slayer had burning inside him right now. He didn't know how long he had lasted this time, surely longer then the last, as time itself had stop having any meaning quite awhile ago. The bliss he was experiencing at the Slayer's hands was like nothing he had ever know before.

The blonde vampire couldn't help the soft moan that passes through his mouth, most of which was swallowed by the Slayer as her lips, covered in his own blood, were pressed against his. Her hand had long since replaced her thigh on his jean covered erection as she more firmly straddled his own thigh as she practically writhed sliding up and down his leg. Her strong yet surprisingly gentle, almost delicate grip was more then enough to keep him from regaining more then modicum of his strength. Which meant he was still completely at her mercy. 

He felt the top of her tongue slide along his upper row of teeth. Then before he knew what was happening she impaled her tongue on his canine. An instant later the first drop of her blood hit his tongue. It was just as he remembered it from nearly a hundred years before, the ultimate aphrodisiac. Only this was more so, a dozen, a hundred times as potent, he didn't know. He only knew it was stronger then anything he had ever tasted before.

Spike felt his body revitalize even as the Slayer's grip tighten to an unbelievable level. The combination was beyond anything he had a hope of withstanding. There was nothing he could do. He felt his body drain of everything he had for a fourth time, in what felt like an eternity, but knew wasn't more then a mere handful of minutes.

The Slayer emitted a low growl. The support she had been providing him with was gone, and he felt himself drop to the floor like a limp noodle. His knees slap against the floor, a moment later his back, shoulders, and head hit the door with a dull thwack as he struggles to stay conscious.

Buffy barely felt, what for most people would have been a vise like grip digging into their shoulder, as a strong arm pulled her around. "What the..." Her own anger driven voice began to ask before the words stopped dead as Buffy stared into her own green eyes.

She slams her backfist into what she assumes is the Buffybot's head staggering the machine but not enough to drop it to the ground. "I can't believe Willow put the fucking bot back together," she snarls as Buffy regains her balance.

Buffy had never been hit so hard before in her life. The reason she was even conscious had more to do with the fact she had already started moving back away from her doppelganger then because she was actually strong enough to take a punch from her. "This time," her battered twin hisses at her while the same hand that just knocked her nearly senseless lashes out grabbing her by the throat.

With ease that surprises Buffy she's hoisted into the air as if she were a sack of feathers. "I'm going to personally make sure your melted into the slag that you are," she finishes as her hand begins tightening around Buffy's neck.

Spike's glazed eyes begin to focus on the sight in front of him as his strength begins to come back to him. At first he thinks he's still in some type of delusional state as he sees the two Buffy's before him. One was real Buffy, the other some kind of demon that had just had her way with him as if he was a fop for her amusement.

He bristles at that thought. Nobody, ever used him for anything and got away with it let alone some no account demon doing a bad Buffy impersonation. He didn't care if his head exploded in a thousand pieces the bitch was going to know she had been in one hell of a fight. Even as he noticed the demon's hand tightening around Buffy's throat he launched himself at her with a great heave.

At least that had been his attention only demon Buffy sensed his attack before it had truly begun. Her left hand had, palm flat, slammed him back against the door with barely any effort at all. Buffy had her hands wrapped around the demon's wrist trying to pry it's hand off with almost as much success as Spike was having.

Buffy glances around quickly without taking her attention off her two captives. Something was seriously wrong with the picture she was seeing. First she was in Giles apartment. An apartment he hadn't had in nearly two years. The person she was holding aloft wasn't a robot at all but a living, breathing human being. A human being that just happened to look like she did her freshman year of collage.

Giles' apartment, the smell of chocolate chip cookies in the air, Spike tied to a wooden chair- she thought there had been a wooden chair involved there- meant it was either thanksgiving or just after Willow's my will be done spell. Those were the only two times she could recall that Willow had baked chocolate chip cookies in Giles' apartment. She was just about to let her otherself go when a sudden flash of light burst directly in front of her eyes causing her to stumble back.

That was all the incentive her younger self and Spike needed to attack her in a coordinated assault they almost instinctively had when fighting side by side. Once this little tussle was over she was going to have to have a long talk with Willow about her timing. Mainly about how she didn't have any.

All around her she heard the commotion as the room burst into action. Anya was getting out of the way scurrying, like a startled rabbit, into the far back corner. Buffy knew it was the smartest thing any of her past friends were likely to do. She listened as Giles pulled his, already loaded, crossbow out of its hiding place. Xander took a step back, but otherwise stood poised to help when he thought an opening presented itself. Willow, like Anya, had ducked down out of the way. The battered slayer knew however that unlike the ex-vengeance demon, redhead was just biding her time. She knew that this Willow lacked the overwhelming strength that she would gain in later years. A fact that Buffy was grateful for.

Buffy had gotten her eyes closed just in time. At first she hadn't known what Willow was trying to signal to her but she eventual managed to figure it out. As soon as she felt her evil twin stagger back a step she made her move, finally managing to break her doppelgangers grip, she shoves the arm out of her way. Stepping forward she unleashes a straight right cross, that her evil self just barely slips to the side. Out of the corner of her eye, and much to her surprise, she sees Spike come barreling at the slut that wore her face. She however didn't see evil Buffy's right hand, as it guided hers up and over, altering her center of gravity which made it that much easier for it's hard shove to take her off her feet. Sending her flipping over the back of Giles' sofa.

Spike was stunned speechless when his chip didn't go off as he slammed into the Buffy demon. Not one to wonder why something happens, Spike instantly went on the offensive launching a series of hard punches towards the thing wearing Buffy's face. Even blinded as she was she was still managing to deflect, evade, or absorb his punches with no real damage. It was like she knew exactly what he was going to throw and when he was going to throw it before he did. Spike didn't care. It just made him more determined then ever to get past her defenses.

Barely a handful of seconds had passed by while the two whirlwinds traded punches to fast for anyone one to see. Buffy more felt then heard Giles squeeze the crossbow's trigger. Her rage at that instant seamed to jump to an almost palpable level as she moved to the side, caught the bolt as it moved past her, whirled around releasing the bolt at the proper point to send it back where it had originated from faster then the crossbow had sent it at her. There was no way for Giles to avoid the projectile as it buried itself half way through his right shoulder.

While Buffy's spinning around Spike seizes the opportunity he sees before him. A bare instant after she's releases the bolt, almost the same moment as it first hits Giles' flesh Spike, once again barrels into her. This time grabbing her around the waist and lifting her feet off the floor as he drives her forward.

Buffy however is for from helpless. Lifting her legs high enough she leans forward hard pulling Spike off balance. Her legs explode downward onto the back of Giles' well used sofa, which breaks from the force of Buffy's feet hitting the old wooden frame. She uses it much like a springboard extending her legs she propels herself, as well as a very amazed vampire, into the air. Once airborne she manages to roll so that Spike winds up underneath her, a position she would normally enjoy, while she aims them for the middle of Giles' coffee table. A small smile creeps across her face as she takes an enormous amount of pleasure in destroying as much of Giles' belongings as she possibly can.

For a brief instant, as Buffy rolls off the old sofa, she wonders if anyone; Xander and Anya, Giles and her mother, Giles and Ms. Calendar, ever had sex on the couch. She shudders at the imagery her overactive imagination has just placed in her head. She pushes the thought away trying not to think about what had caused it the first place. Spike is evil. Spike is a soulless disgusting thing. Spike is a heartless creature with no feelings. Spike would gladly kill you and all of your friends. Her feelings towards the vampire firmly reaffirmed in her own mind as she repeats her mantra. According to her, only a creature of pure evil would allow some evil Buffy demon/doppelganger to do the kind of things to him that it was doing.

She begins to rise from the spot on the floor she had landed when two bodies crash through Giles' coffee table right next to her. Hearing Spike groan, as he lies stunned under her evil clone, reminds her that there's a fight that has to be fought. Putting herself back in the moment she quickly flips back to her feet. As she lands she sees Willow rushing to Giles side, a crossbow bolt skewering his shoulder. An instant later the other Buffy flips back to her feet, a move identical to the one Buffy herself had just used, except for the familiar black duster that billows around her as she moves.

Fueled by her rage Buffy attacks her double like she's never attacked anything before. A straight front kick, that Buffy manages to avoid, leads the way. It's followed by a hard backfist, that Buffy block. She spins throwing a spinning backfist at her twins head followed by crescent kick. The first Buffy ducks under the second she pushes back causing her younger self to fall back.

Xander, seeing his opportunity to play the hero, shouts, "I got her!" As he lunges forward.

Buffy didn't need to hear Xander's shout to know what he was about to do, she could hear his feet as they scrape along the floor as he readied himself. "No you don't," Buffy whispers as he moves forward. Buffy's head slams back into his chest sending him reeling backwards. Dropping to his knees he clutches his chest while he groans from pain more intense then anything he's ever felt before. To him it feels as if his chest had just been pulverized by a wrecking ball. Anya's by his side even before he's stopped moving backwards.

Buffy quickly charges forward as she watches another friend fall. Her duplicate was beginning to blink rapidly. In action Buffy thought meant her eyesight was coming back. She understood the importance of finishing the fight now before the doppelganger got it's eyesight back. If it was able to take out three of the best fighters she knew; Spike, Giles, and Xander while being blind, not to mention being able to casually toss her aside, she knew she had to take it out before it regain it's sight.

Throwing a quick right then left hook, which were both easily blocked, she then tries to connect with another front kick. Her twin blocks this attack as well, stopping it just as the knee reaches it apex. Moving faster then she can follow, Buffy steps up onto her raised knee using it to launch itself into the air. As She rises up her other foot comes up catching Buffy under the chin with enough force flip her over even as her twin's own momentum carries herself over.

The two of them land at almost the same exact moment. Buffy first, crashing to the floor, sprawled out next to a still dazed and barely struggling Spike. While Buffy lands lightly on her feet, dark coat settling around her, scanning the room for the next person to attack her.

Willow had watched the entire proceedings with trepidation. It didn't take a super genius to figure out that this Buffy doppelganger was a much better fighter then anybody else she had ever seen. The last move alone, while Willow couldn't actually see it her mind could reconstruct it, looked like something out of action/martial arts movie. Right down to how dopple Buffy's coat had flared around her before finally coming to rest. Knowing there's no possible way she can beat this Buffy she decides to do something that they should have tried from the beginning. "How about some tea?" The shy redhead asks in a timid voice Buffy couldn't recall hearing from Willow in a very long time.

It's then that Buffy fully realizes exactly what's happened to her. She was in the past. None of these people had every done anything to betray her, well not very much, she amends in the back of her head. They didn't deserve to have the rage she felt towards their older counterparts taken out on them. One part of her mind argued while another side told her to hurt them as much as she possibly could. To destroy them now as they had destroyed her in the future. "Fuck this," she grumbles heading over Giles' kitchen imagining all the various ways she was going to make Lurky beg for taking such broad liberties with her wish.

"How could you do this?" Anya yells from across the room. Obvious angry because she had injured her Xander.

It had been a long time since Buffy had heard such concern for Xander coming from Anya. Appearing in the divider's hollow. One of Giles' larger shot glasses, and his best bottle of scotch in hand. "I told him if he came near me again I'd make him regret it," she answers in a cold voice completely unconcerned by the fact that that had been future Xander and not the one lying on the floor groaning in pain. In her mind they were one in the same.

"This needs to come out," Willow says gaining a little of her confidence back now that it appeared this Buffy wasn't going to kill them out of hand.

"It's not the only thing," Buffy mumbles filling the shot glasses. Willow stares at Buffy not having heard what she blonde had mumbled. Buffy lets out an exasperated sigh, "take it out then," she says loud enough for Willow to hear.

"What? I can't do," she stammers her eyes pleading with Buffy for help.

Buffy downs the contents of the shot glass as she looks at Willow. Wiping her mouth off with the back of her hand she grins a grin that sends a shiver down Willow's spine. "Sure you can. Break the bolt and pull the back out. Make sure there aren't any splinters in the end. Hate to leave one inside his shoulder and have it get infected. Couple days they'd have to chop his arm off." She finishes gleefully as she refills her shot glass and downs the contents as easily as she did the first one.

Willow soft green eyes never leave Buffy's face. Again that little voice in the back of her head just won't go ahead as it tells her things like... These were her friends... That no matter what they did in the future, right now they still cared about her, they still loved her... That she couldn't just watch them suffer needlessly. "Fine," she growls stalking towards Giles.

With all the gentleness of a polar bear mauling a baby sea lion Buffy snaps the bolt in half with her thumb in forefinger. Quickly brushing any splinters present away she grabs hold the bolt sticking out of Giles back. "Hold onto him," she orders harshly. As soon as Willow grabs his shoulders Buffy jerks the end of the bolt out with a quick yank.

Giles bolts awake with a loud scream. His scream causes Willow to jump back with a hoarse shout. It also has the effect of snapping Buffy and Spike out of their unconscious states. The pair jumping to groggily to their feet as they take in their surroundings. Neither of them look overly pleased to see Buffy still among them.

Buffy holds Giles steady for some reason she doesn't understand. She couldn't care less if the watcher suffered some other injury. Ripping open his shirt along his shoulder before he even knows what's happening, taking the bottle of Scotch from where she had placed it on the floor and dumps a portion of the contents over the wound. "Bollocks!" He shouts at the sudden shock to his system as the alcohol snaps him out of the stupor he was in.

"Bandage it and you'll be as good as new," she informs him. Rising back to her feet she moves back behind the counter vowing again to make Lurky suffer for an indefinite amount of time for what he was putting her through.

Buffy takes a threatening step forward as her head begins to clear. "Who the hell are you!" She snaps as her twin pours itself another drink.

Buffy downs the drink. Her hard eyes latch onto Buffy and they seem to soften momentarily before filling back up with the anger that had been there previously. "Figured you would've figured it by now. Guess I'm giving myself to much credit," she scoffs. "Should've remembered how much of a ditz I used to be."

"For someone that talks so much you haven't said anything that makes sense," Buffy retorts angrily at being insulted by some cheap clone of herself.

"That's because you never listen to the words coming out of peoples mouths," Buffy spits back. "Put the blinders on and live in your own little fantasy world where you never have to deal with reality. Beautiful way to live your life. That's until reality comes up, and doesn't just slap you in the ass, but crushes your nice little fantasy..."

"Are you gonna get to the ass end of this rant anytime soon?" Spike inquires as he flops down on Giles' broken couch unconcerned by the looks the others were giving him. His little encounter with Buffy's bitchy double had shown him something. He wasn't as helpless as he had originally thought and he couldn't wait to get out of the watcher's flat to test out his limits. "Some of us have a bloody unlife live," he gripes.

"Buffy," Willow says helping Giles stand to his feet. The hasty bandage she had applied doing an adequate job of stemming the flow of blood.

"What?" Both Buffy's respond at the same time. The one standing with her friends in the pallor sounding concerned, the one alone in the kitchen sounding irritated.

"You're both Buffy," she rushes on looking at her Buffy. "She's from an alternate reality or something. Kinda like when my evil vamp self came over from the wishverse," she reasons.

"I'm not from any damn wishverse, no matter if it was a wish that got me here." Buffy growls not really wanting to explain anything to these people, but knowing she was going to have to eventually. All she had wanted was her Spike back. Not to be dumped three years into the past and have to put up with everything all over again. Going through it once was more then enough for her. She wasn't really looking for a repeat performance.

Giles winces as he moves forward, receiving a cold glare from Buffy as she takes notice of him. "Then how would you explain your presence. Here in this reality were you already exist."

"It's called time travel," she answers in a mocking slow voice.

Giles sneers at the notion, "you truly expect us to believe that you traveled though time? From the future I suppose."

"I don't care what you believe," she responds shaking slightly from the anger trying to work it's way out. Her hand was practically shaking with the rage she felt for the man standing in front of her. She had no idea how she was staying her hand from reaching out and snapping his neck like the brittle twig it was. If not for his betrayal Spike would still be alive, she would have gone on living in her fantasy world where her sister loved her, where her friends cared about her, where Giles was still the father she wished she could have had.

"Fine," she says feeling everyone's eyes on her. "You want proof that I'm from the future," she continues looking around at the assembled group of people in front of her. "Just remember you asked for this. It's ninety-nine a few hours after mine and Spike's engagement got concealed thanks to Willow revoking her spell right?" She asks the her younger self.

"Yea," Buffy answers her question. "What's that got to do with anything?"

Buffy ignores herself. Instead focusing in on Giles, "your girlfriend Olivia is going to be dropping by for a visit in a few days." Giles eyes widen slightly he had only gotten the call a day ago and hadn't told anybody about her visit. "I'd advise against. She doesn't really believe what you do and you have evil fairy tales that show up, stealing everyones voice so they can't scream while their hearts are being removed. She can't deal, you break up. So sorry," she says in a mirthless voice that wasn't sorry in the slightest. "You should really invite Tara over," she tells Willow.

Willow blinks trying to remember where she had heard the name before, "Tara?" She questions with a slight shake of her head.

Buffy sighs, "blonde hair, really shy. You originally met her at a wicca meeting you attended before Oz left. She's really nice. You two are almost like best buds. You do a lot of... Spells together," the blonde adds with a secretive smile as recognition shines in Willow's eyes.

Looking to the back of the room were Anya still hovers over a shirtless Xander, "your best friend in the entire world is Helfrek a vengeance demon that was once a human girl named Cecely Underwood, the one time..."

With a heated glare at Buffy, Spike chokes out, "where the hell'd you put my fags?" The vampire snarls loudly cutting Buffy off before she can reveal any of his secretes. The fact that she even knew the name of Cecely Underwood didn't bode well for his piece of mind.

Without even thinking Buffy reaches into her coat pocket. Pulling out a half empty pack of cigarettes and Spike's lighter she tosses them to the blonde vampire. Spike catches them out of the air with barely a glance until he flips open the lighter after putting a cigarette between his lips. His fingers stop moving as he stares at the piece of metal in his hands. "This is my lighter," he exclaims softly as his head whips around to stare at Buffy who's wearing his coat.

When his eyes reach her face he can see a single tear shining against her rather stark complexion. "You're not him," she croaks. Turning on her heel she races up the back stairs almost too fast for anyone to see. A second later everyone on the lower floor hears Giles' bedroom door slam shut with a resounding bang.

"Looks like someone gets the couch tonight," Spike smirks as he ignites the lighter. Laughing softly he puts the flickering flame to his unlight cigarette. He didn't know what this meant to his future self that him and the slayer had gotten so chummy he was telling her intimate details of his life. He didn't much care either. The future was the future and he wasn't going to spend his time wondering about what happened. It either would or it wouldn't and there was nothing he could do about it.

________________________________________________________________________

Be With You - Enrique Iglesias

Monday night I feel so low  
Count the hours they go so slow  
I know the sound of your voice  
Can save my soul  
City lights, streets of gold  
Look out my window to the world below  
Moves so fast and it feels so cold  
And I`m all alone  
  
Don`t let me die  
I`m losing my mind  
Baby just give me a sign  
  
And now that you`re gone  
I just wanna be with you  
And I can`t go on  
I wanna be with you  
Wanna be with you  
I can`t sleep and I`m up all night  
Through these tears I try to smile  
I know the touch of your hand  
Can save my life  
Don`t let me down  
Come to me now  
I got to be with you some how  
Repeat  
Chorus  
  
  
And now that you`re gone  
Who am I with-out you now  
I can`t go on  
I just wanna be with you


	3. Chap 2: Rainbow in the Dark

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Chapter Two: Rainbow in the Dark

Giles' bedroom door nearly crashes outwards as Buffy slams the door close behind her as she leaps onto the watcher's bed. She just barely remembers to reign in her strength. As it is the door frame cracks under the impact.

For a moment downstairs, when she had looked at Spike from out of her past, she wondered if she could love him. It had been a brief and flitting moment, there and gone just as fast. He was Spike, of that there was no doubt. He just wasn't her Spike. They didn't share the same history. Didn't have the same shared experiences. Hadn't suffered for each other, because of each other, at each other's hands the way she and her Spike had. While she had no doubt in her mind that she could make this Spike hers she would never be his. Not like she was his future incarnation's.

That was why she had run as hard as she could, as fast as she could, to get out from under his accusing eyes. The only problem being was that she couldn't out run herself. No matter how hard she had tried she would always be looking back at herself.

She hadn't even made it halfway up the stairs before her eyes had unleashed the flood of tears that were now streaming down her cheeks. It had been days since the last time she had broken down and that had been nothing compared to this. She had thought she had finally moved beyond this stage of her grief.

Then again her stages seemed to be moving in a circular pattern that she was having problems keeping track of. Acceptance, anger, and denial were playing a never ending game of musical chairs. Once she began to cope with one the music would start back up and around and around they would go until a different emotion wound up in the driver's chair and the cycle would start all over again.

She curls in on herself, drawing her knees upward as she pulls the pillow to her chest. Reaching into the left pocket of Spike's duster her hand pulls out a crumpled and tear stain sheet of old parchment. It was the kind of paper that was used over a hundred years ago. Her hands tremble like they always do whenever she holds this simple piece of paper. Ignoring the top of the page she instantly focuses in on the last few paragraphs at the bottom.

It has to be. I have to believe that if you had been free to chose you would have chosen me. But you weren't and you can't and I can't continue knowing that I'll never have all of you. That when we touch there's always a piece of you that'll never be mine.

Yet I can't leave you either. There is only one thing that I can do. I'll give to you a gift like the world has never seen. I give you the world free of the Hell Mouth. I give you a world rid of the First Evil. I give you a world in which you can set aside the title Slayer, Protector of the World and just be Buffy the woman I fell in love with.

This is my gift to you. The one and only thing that is truly worthy of you. Promise me that someday you'll find somebody that you can love with everything that you are. Somebody that'll love you the way you deserve.

My luv, always and Forever.

Her tears fall faster, harder as she reads and re-reads the letter. It wasn't that she needed to see the lines written on the page to know what the words were. She had it memorized from the first time her eyes scanned the page and realized what Spike had been planning on doing. Each time she reads the letter she felt her heart being torn apart anew, as if her very soul was being ripped asunder.

"It was you," she chokes out. "It was always you. Only you. You're the only one I ever wanted. Why couldn't you see that? Why wouldn't I let you see that?" She continues to cry as she buries her face into the sheet of paper just like she always did.

"I say we go upstairs and lynch her," Anya offers seriously as her and Willow continue to wrap Xander's bruised chest in gauss and bandages. For no reason any of them could fathom Spike had informed them that none of his ribs were broken a short time after Buffy had run out of the room.

Nobody believed Spike at first until the blonde vampire had pointed out he could care less if Harris lived or died. Then a thought had popped into his head as he remembered if Xander died then he would be able to get a drink of human blood instead of the pig swill he was forced to drink. Then he frowned remembering it was Harris he was talking about and he preferred drinking the pig slop. No one had found his joke on the subject very amusing.

"Yes," Giles mutters sarcastically. "Because a frontal assault worked so well on her last time why don't we go and launch another one?" The old watcher suggest bitterly. "Bloody inspirational," he mumbles loud enough for everyone to hear. He better then anyone here knew what the risks were of attacking a slayer head on, weather she was asleep or awake. Most of the time asleep was the worst of the options because they reacted to everything instinctively, without conscious thought.

"She needs to pay for how she hurt Xander," the ex-vengeance demon responds not willing to let the matter go.

"Long as he doesn't go antagonizing the chit. Whelp'll be fine in a few weeks," Spike says with a smile on his face thinking of the pain filled weeks Harris was in for.

Anya frowns at Spike, "but until then there will be no orgasms."

Spike smirks at her, "then maybe you should fine someone a bit more durable. Someone not prone to all these injuries, or at least someone who doesn't need oxygen to still be serviceable," he suggests playfully.

"Hey!" Xander squawks as he tries to sit up.

"Don't move," Anya says easily keeping Xander from doing more then getting his shoulders off the ground while her frown at Spike deepens. "Thank you for the offer Spike but I prefer that the men I sleep with don't look at me like I was the main course."

"But you would be my main course," Spike whispers seductively "Every single night I'd sample your exquisite..."

"Just why haven't we tied your British butt back up yet?" Buffy snarls at Spike cutting the platinum blonde vampire off before his attempts at seduction could degenerate any further.

Spike cocks his head over his shoulder before turning to face the slayer, "I believe she's about yea tall," he says holding his hand up to the top of Buffy's head. "Has a major attitude, and claims to come from the future," he says ticking reasons off his fingers. "And aside from you, prissy little chit that you are, I'm the only one capable of giving her a good go."

"Yeah and we all saw just how good of go that was," Buffy hisses incapable of stopping the jealous sounding words from jumping out of her mouth.

"Hey I was right there with you," Spike snarls back having missed the meaning of what Buffy had said.

"Yeah and a lot of help you were," Buffy shoots back at the bleach blonde vampire thankful that he was so dense he had misinterpreted the meaning behind her comment.

Spike whirls away, an action made less impressive seeming then it normally was by the lack of his black duster flaring around him as he moves. He takes two steps before turning back around to face Buffy, shoving his fingers at her he wishes he had a cigarette between them. Just for effect not because of the way the slayer's temper was getting him worked up again. "I didn't see you doing a hell of a lot better," he points out angrily.

Buffy takes a step forward feeling her heartbeat faster the closer she came to Spike. Weather that was because he was pissing her off with every word that came out of his mouth or because she was excited by the thought of another confrontation with him she didn't know and she really didn't care at the moment. "That's because you were lying around in a state of, I just got my ass handed to me, while I was doing all the real fighting," she nearly yells into his face.

"Guys," Willow says quietly into the momentary silence after Buffy's last word.

"What!" They both shout at the same time. Their heads turning almost in unison with each other as the turn to look at the shy red head who had interrupted them. Buffy moves first marching away from Spike back over to Giles so she can change his bandage again while Spike makes a bee line for the windowsill where he'd left the pack of cigarettes the other Buffy had given him. He really needed something to calm him down.

Willow blinks several times as she watches Buffy and Spike move away from each other. The two of them were acting even meaner to each other then they usually did. The words they were slinging about somehow seemed even more hurtful then normal. She shakes her head not wanting to think about the implications of what she was seeing. Things she might not have seen if future Buffy hadn't shown up flinging herself upon Spike like he was her heart. A heart that she had been missing for quite a long time.

"As entertaining as watching the two of you verbally spar with each other isn't," Giles scolds into the silence. Then grimaces as Buffy accidentally applies too much pressure as she finishes redressing the bandage on his wounded shoulder. Giles glances up at her and receives one of her patented innocent little girl smiles she was found of tossing around when she did something slightly wrong. "We still need to figure out what we are going to do about her. Something has obviously affected her in such a way that she might be unstable."

"What was your first clue that something wasn't right in the land of Buffydom?" Xander questions harshly, "the fact she was all over deadboy jr. or that she wailed on her nearest and dearest like we were a pack of vamps trolling for dinner?"

Buffy glances at Xander her soft, blue eyes meeting his bitter brown orbs. She can see years of repressed anger filling them and turns her head away from him to glance at Willow. The red head wasn't meeting her eyes. "Look she's been through something," she says into the silence Xander's hate filled comment caused. "Something traumatic, maybe even catastrophic. Something that none of us can possible understand."

"So what is it you propose we do?" Giles inquires once again placing his trust in Buffy. She had proved, on far too many occasions, that her instincts and intuition were perhaps the best guides in situations like this one.

"I don't know," she admits with a shrug.

"I say we summon Hallie and wish her the hell out of here," Anya proposes helpfully. "Perhaps we can get her a seat on the guided tour of hell. She could spend eternity visiting all the hotspo..."

"We aren't summoning another bloody demon," Giles rudely cuts into Anya's rant. "Having one on the premises unrestrained is quite enough. Now if you don't have something useful to offer to this conversation then I suggest you either vacate my flat immediately or shut the hell up until you do."

"Well, if you're going to..."

"Maybe we should try talking to her," Willow interrupts Anya. "I mean we know something happened to her, some event or tragic accident or some such thing and judging by the way she was acting towards us I'd say we were in part responsible for it."

"There's no way that we could do something that would make her act like that towards us yet leaves her craving bleach boy here," Xander breaks in. "I mean we're your best buds. The Scooby gang, the slayerettes, the guys that have been there since the beginning. That've help you through everything," he says through clenched teeth. "It's got to be a spell or something evil doing a Buffy impersonation because it wants to break us apart."

"Yeah, because evil the world over trembles in fear at the name Xander Harris," Spike scoffs from next to the window.

"Kicked your ass often enough," Xander growls.

"No," Spike replies through gritted teeth, smoke billows out of his nostrils as he points at Buffy. "She's kick my ass often enough. You've barely managed to maintain the role of comic relief," he smirks watching the young man struggle with his temper.

"Not surprising whose side you'd wind up on," Xander sneers reminding everyone of how close this other Buffy had been with Spike.

"This bickering isn't getting us anywhere," Giles interrupts the two of them before either can says something else. "Willow why don't you continue what you were saying before you were interrupted," he says with a pointed glare at both the vampire and the boy. "I think that you might have been on to something," the watcher admits remembering the way Buffy had looked at him with nearly pure rage burning in her eyes.

Why she hadn't killed him when she had hurled the crossbow bolt at him was still a mystery. She was more then capable of putting the bolt through his heart instead of leaving him with, what was nothing more then a rather painful flesh wound. In fact in the heat of battle her instincts would have been to go for the kill yet she had chosen to injure him instead. He suspected that there was something far more complicated at play here then any of them suspected.

"Well all I was really going to say is that one of us should, you know, try to get to know her," Willow runs down. "I know it's not really a plan, but it seems like the only thing we got going for us."

"It is a good plan," Buffy replies giving her friend her support since she really didn't want to go head to head with herself again anytime soon. She had the feeling that her older self had been holding back during their first go round and if antagonized she may not feel the need for that kind of restraint again. "Which one of us did you have in mind?"

"I think we can safely cross Xander off the list," Willow says slowly. "It's nothing personal. Its just with some of the things you'd say I think you'd come back from a talk missing vital parts of your anatomy."

"Then I say he should be the first to go," Spike remarks to Harris with a broad smirk.

"Good thing the choice isn't up to you," Buffy replies snidely as she suppresses the smile that threatens to crack her face. Pushing down the warm feeling Spike causes her she begins mentally repeating her mantra on the vileness that is Spike.

"And it can't be you," Willow informs the blonde vampire.

Spike snorts, "what makes you think I'd care what you did with the chit?" Spike questions, "aside from finally getting the stick up her ass amputated she still seems to be as much of a royal pain as miss priss here."

Buffy turns to glare at Spike as Willow continues speaking. The young witch having developed the skill of talking no matter what anybody was doing around her. "You seem to cause her as much pain as seeing Giles enrages her..."

"Just tell me again why I haven't staked your ass yet?"

"...And Anya's as bad as Xander right now. Maybe if she got over the fact of future Buffy hurting Xander..."

"Cause you still need me to figure out what commando boys are up to," Spike gloats.

"...And Buffy seems almost as pissed off at herself as she does Giles and she seems to be redirecting that anger at you, so that leaves you out as well..."

"Oh I think we could do pretty well on our own," Buffy challenges him.

Spike smirks lightly, "right. Because you've done such a bloody good job of it so far?"

"Do you think you're up to that kind of confrontation? She didn't seem none to pleased with you if I recall," Giles inquires politely not wanting to bruise the young girls delicate feelings.

"I wasn't thinking of me," Willow admits.

"If I didn't have to spend so much time watching your dead ass then I probably would have found them by now."

"But you're the only person left," Anya points out slightly confused by the red heads logic.

Willow shakes her head, "not according to Buffy..."

"You wouldn't even know the bleeding wankers existed if it wasn't for me," Spike growls as the Buffy glares at him.

"She mentioned a girl that I met at a Wicca meeting a few months ago."

"This Tara?" Giles quizzes remembering the name from future Buffy's previous assertions. "Are you sure about this?"

"And yet we'd still know more about them then you've been able tell us so far."

"Not really," Willow concedes, "but Buffy did say that the two of us were best friends in the future. Plus when she talked about her she seemed as if she was happy, or at least not so sad."

Giles nods his head in acquisition to her judgement, "if you think it will help us sort out this problem then by all means proceed. Just be cautious, we don't know what the circumstances were that brought this girl to us," he sternly advises the young girl.

"...And you wouldn't have found out about them until one of their little groups caught sight of you cracking demon skulls..."

Willow gives him a warm smile, "don't worry Giles. She's a friend, just one we haven't met yet."

"...Doing things no human can do. Then they would've had themselves one little brassed off slayer locked up in their little sci-fi fields doing to you..." He cuts himself off with a snarl as he curses himself. What the hell should he care if the slayer and all her little pals got stuck in one of those damn cells. Let them experience what he gone through and see how they all liked it. "I need a bloody fucking drink," he growls storming into Giles kitchen.

Buffy watches Spike rush out of the room shocked. He was truly concerned about what happened to her. Maybe not in a wishing her happiness and a long life kind of concern but he didn't want her to go through whatever had happened to him. That was what he had been going to say before he stopped himself. She was sure of it.

Then again the entire thing could have been a ploy to make her think he had some kind of feelings for her. It was simply another way to keep her off balance. To lure her in before springing a trap where he could sink his fangs into her. Satisfied that she had worked out his convoluted plot Buffy once again begins her mantra: Spike is evil. Spike is a soulless disgusting thing. Spike is a heartless creature with no feelings. Spike would gladly kill you and all of your friends.

Continuing her turn all the way around so that she's facing Willow and Giles she questions, "so who're we sending in?"

Dawn's eyes snap open with the suddenness of a flash flood. She bolts upright, tossing the piece of paper that had been in front of her face to the side, as she peers into the darkness of the unfamiliar surroundings. Only she was able to make out more details of the bedrooms furnishings then she should have been able to considering the time of night, the sealed door, the shuttered blinds, and drawn curtains.

Everything felt wrong. She felt wrong. Her body ached in spots she had never thought could ache. Everything was too sharp. Color's were too bright, as they stabbed into her eyes, leaving her with a sense of vertigo. Odor's were to strong, their mingled scents making her nauseous. There was a constant buzz in her ears that sounded like nest of wasp were buzzing around inside her skull. An intense tingle centered at the base of her spine and would occasionally become stronger or weaker for no reason what-so-ever. Several minutes pass at a snails pace as she slowly brings her rampant senses back under semblance of control.

As her heart slowed from the marathon pace it had been on she began to realize the room wasn't as unfamiliar as she had originally thought. In fact she could remember spending several nights in a row sleeping in this room. The first few nights after Buffy sacrificed herself she couldn't bring herself to spend the nights at her house. A house that now wasn't only devoid of her mother's loving presence, but also of her sister's over protectiveness. Giles had been kind enough to allow her the use of his bed for a few nights until she could come to terms with what she had lost.

That was where she was now, Giles' old bedroom back in his Sunnydale apartment. Which begged the question how. She began racking her brain, trying to piece together what had happened. The last thing she remembered before waking up in Giles' bed was running her hands over Spike's taut body, kissing him, groping, rubbing her body into his. The intense heat that had been...

Her mind freezes as her face goes scarlet. That was a dream. A very intense, very tangible dream that left her on the edge of a bliss she didn't think was possible to achieve. She had been Buffy, a very sore Buffy, but still Buffy. She was in the past shortly after the Initiative had put the chip in his head. She had been making out with Spike, kissing, groping, and just doing things to him that she didn't even know could be done. She had found that aspect of the dream strange since the last time she had seen Spike he had tried to kill her, or so she thought at the time. Her last encounter with Buffy had been even less pleasant.

The make-out session had been interrupted by the fight. A fight were she fought like Buffy as she fought Buffy, Spike, and everyone else. Of course she had won. She was Buffy after all and this was her dream. After the fight had come the interrogation of her by the gang. She could remember wanting to kill Giles, wanting to hurt Xander, Willow, everybody that had hurt her in the past, not her, but everyone that had hurt Buffy in the past. To just lash out at everything around her. She remembers keeping up a running argument with herself listing all the reasons she couldn't just unleash her anger at these people who had never done her any harm.

Numbly, she was coming to the realization that it hadn't been a dream. That somehow she was inside Buffy's head. The head of a person she hated, the person who had just up and abandoned her, a person that hated her nearly as much as she hated her.

Somebody had merged their minds into Buffy's body and transported them back into nineteen ninety-nine, maybe early two thousand. Somebody that obviously hated the two of them nearly as much as they hated each other. Either that or it was someone that found the situation extremely amusing and was right now laughing his or her ass off watching events unfold.

Somehow it had been her that had kept Buffy from killing everyone downstairs. That she was somehow able to influence Buffy's actions, that she might have a slight amount of control. Then she looks down at Buffy's blood covered hands. The torn and tattered clothing soaked in Buffy's blood. Spike's duster that Buffy hadn't bothered taking off before she had sobbed herself to sleep.

A smile creeps its way across her lips as she realizes she had more then just an infinitesimal amount of control over Buffy's actions. Right now she was Buffy. While Buffy was sleeping she had control of her body. That she could do whatever she wanted and nobody would be able to stop her. Just to prove a point she lifts Buffy's arm up in front of her then she puts it back down. Then she drums her fingertips on her thigh as she lightly taps her foot on the floor. She can't stop the smile that spreads across her face. For a girl who, until a few years ago, had been nothing more then a big glowing ball of green energy she could think of far worse fates then being trapped in her sister's skull. As long as she got to come out every now and then to play she could deal with sharing her sister's body.

Standing up she feels her stomach growl as it tightens into a painful knot. She feels as if she hasn't eaten in several days and wonders just how long it has been since Buffy's last decent meal. Standing up Dawn walks over to the mirror and gasps seeing the condition Buffy's body is in. She had seen Buffy thin before, the past two years she had eaten like a bird, but what she saw in front of her made thin Buffy seem obese. Her sister's body looked skeletal.

Her eyes were sunken deep, her cheeks were cavernous hollows. Her collar bones were practically sticking out through the flesh that remained. Looking down at her hands she realizes she can see the thin bones just underneath the skin's surface. She was almost afraid to take off the duster and blouse she was wearing, but she needed to see everything. What she saw wasn't a very pretty sight. She had seen skeletons with more flesh covering their ribs then she had right now. Buffy had never been endowed with large breast but at least people knew she had breast. Now her chest had more in common with a little boy's then a twenty-two year old woman.

Grabbing the brush of Giles' dresser she goes to work on her hair. There was no way she was going to let anyone see her looking like this, even if it was Buffy's body they were seeing. It takes her nearly ten minutes to brush all the snarls out of her hair, but there's nothing she can do at present to get rid of the frizzy split ends. Absently she wonders just what Buffy had been doing before getting sucked into the pass, she knew it had to involve her older sister sticking her finger into an electrical outlet, but other then that she didn't know what she possibly could have been doing.

As she went through Giles' wardrobe looking for something to wear she tried delving into Buffy's memories to find out what she had been doing. Each time she kept running into a brick wall that wouldn't give no matter how hard she pushed. Not that she was pushing too hard right now. For all she knew her trying to get in might be something that would wake up Buffy and waking Buffy up right now was something she wanted to avoid.

After putting on one of Giles' white t-shirts she slips on a thick green sweatshirt before sliding Spike's duster back on. She didn't know if the gang had seen how thin Buffy was, or if they had even paid attention to it, but if they hadn't she wanted to keep it that way. Give herself a little time and she would get some meat back on Buffy's skeletal frame even if it killed her.

Mentally preparing herself for the performance of a lifetime she quietly pulls open the door to Giles' bedroom. Squinting her eyes as she tries to adjust to the brightness of the light in the hall Dawn stops before she steps out into the hallway. Standing just inside the bedroom door she picks up the conversation from downstairs. Her light frown deepens slightly as she comes to realization that Buffy had probably been able to hear just about every conversation that went on around her. She wonders just how many times her sister heard somebody insult her and never do anything because if she was a normal girl she never would have been able to hear the comment in the first place.

"...Concerns me is the fact that your chip didn't activate when you attacked her," Giles' dry voice ponders from down below. "Are you positive it functions the same way in response to every creature you attack?"

"Sorry," Spike replies as he shifts his stance, "guess I should've told every one the soddin thing doesn't work on time travelling bitches from the future. Bloody stupid of me," he says sarcastically. A second later he continues, his rough accent conveying his annoyance. "Its not like I attacked every single bloke I came across. Unlike some poofters I could mention, I happen to like my noggin pain free."

"Maybe whoever put it in your head wanted something they could control. Some kind of shock troops," Willow suggest. "Think about it. Vampires, super strong, super fast, excellent senses, wouldn't show up on heat sensors. They look human, but you can shoot them all you want and it isn't going to slow them down, unless you hit a kneecap or something. But their not really the type you want to turn your back on. At least not if you're human. So create a chip that produces a concentrated neurological pain when they attack human beings, get yourself a whole bunch of vampires, and suddenly you have yourself unkillable shock troops."

"It sounds like we finally might have some kind of idea about what this organization is after in Sunnydale," Giles agrees.

"Nice theory, except for the fact that I can't even think about hitting a human without it buzzing around my head," Spike growls.

"Who said they were going to be sending you against humans," Anya interjects. "I'm sure there are a lot of demons out there that you would have been sent up against. Though your survival rate would dip accordingly. Either that or there's an off switch," she points out helpfully.

"That's it!" Xander shouts from below as Dawn inches her way down the stairs taking all the time she needs to allow her senses plenty of time to adjust to all the new stimuli presented to them.

"What's it?" Willow asks almost sounding afraid of what the answer might be.

"That proves that the other Buffy is a demon," Xander explains jovially.

"I'm not quite sure I follow your thought process honey," Anya replies.

Dawn follows his thinking though. If Spike's chip didn't work on demons and Spike could hit future Buffy then that must mean she's a demon. "I believe I do," Giles says into the silence. "You believe because Spike's chip may only function on humans that the Buffy upstairs may not be human."

"Right," Xander almost shouts again. "I mean it only makes sense. Why else would she be macking on Spike and beating on us if she was what she claimed? Buffy from the future."

"Maybe because out of all the men she knows in the future I'm the only one man enough for her," Spike suggest cockily. "What with the likes of poofter's such as yourselves for her to chose from could it be any wonder that she'd pick me?"

"So she's with you simply because there's no one else?" Buffy inquires far too politely.

"I can't help it if you surround yourself with nothing but nancy boy's," Spike responds in a voice coated with far too much sugar for Dawn's liking. "That you wouldn't be up to the challenge of having to handle a real man," he says a moment before the sound of his zippo popping open reaches her.

"As soon as one shows up we'll find out wont we?" There was a moment of silence down below before Buffy speaks again. "As far as her being some kind of demon, I don't think so. She didn't feel demony to me, she just seemed really pissed off."

"I happen to concur," Giles replies, "but we can't ignore the possibility that Xander may be right, no matter how unlikely."

"I know," Buffy responds.

"Not to change the subject," Spike cuts in, "but my nails really need a new coat of polish. One of you's wouldn't happen to have something that matches up with pitch black?"

"I don't wear anything that dark. It clashes with my complexion," Anya replies apologetically.

"Oz left some of his behind," Willow adds. "I don't think any of its black, but you could take a look. See if there's anything there you like," she offers.

"I don't want to take something if your..."

"Your not. I mean yeah it reminds me of Oz and all and at first I wouldn't let you use any of it because it belong to Oz, but its only nail polish. It's not like Oz is stuck inside one of the bottles and it is nail polish so it should get used and if there's a color there that you like then you should use it," Willow says in a rush.

"That's awful kind of you red," Spike replies softly.

"Have you thought about using something other then black?" Buffy questions actually sounding nice to Spike for a change. "I got this blue that would go perfectly with your eyes," she suggest sounding hopeful.

"I don't know," Spike hedges. "Black just screams Big Bad."

"Trust me, it's not the nail polish that screams big bad."

"I don't believe this," Xander growls. "You have the nerve to call us poofter's... Whats a poofter anyway?"

"A homosexual," Giles answers.

"A homose..." Xander gasps. "You call us faggots while you sit around discussing nail care with a bunch of girls," he demands angrily.

"Just because your not secure in your masculinity doesn't mean I'm not," Spike goads Xander.

"Hey I'm very secure in my masculinity," Xander objects.

"Now if you just keep telling yourself that, then maybe someday you'll even believe it," Spike responds sarcastically.

Dawn decides that now would probably be a good time to make her presence known. It would at least keep Spike and Xander from verbally sparing with each other. She had already been creeping down the stairs during the entire conversation so now all she had to do was step out and let everybody see her.

She'd have to talk as well. That part might be a problem. She didn't actually talk a lot like Buffy, but then again they didn't know what Buffy from the future talked like either. Summoning up her courage she takes that final step into everybody's view. They were all looking at her. It felt like they were all looking at her. Most of them actually had their back's to her: Giles in his chair, Buffy standing at his shoulder, Xander and Anya on the demolished couch. Her eyes refused to look at Spike standing at the windowsill, but somehow she still knew where he was without having to look at him. In fact the only one that could see her was Willow, who was sitting in Giles' other, not so comfy, chair. But it felt like they could all see her, like they could all tell it was her and not Buffy in control of the body.

She takes a deep breath, slows her speeding heart and gives Willow her biggest smile, "hey guys," she blurts loudly into their conversation. Everybody that wasn't facing her spins around so that they are. "I'm really sorry about before, the things I said. Beating the crap out of you guys. I wasn't feeling at all like myself, must of been something to do with temporal jet lag. I mean if you think crossing the international date line plays havoc with your body just imagine losing three plus years. I mean heck I feel like a completely different person now."

"Buffy?" Giles questions as the real Buffy steps in front of her friends in order to protect them in case her older self begins channeling Spike's anger instead of Willow's babble.

"Yep, that's me. Buffy the one and only," Dawn glances at the real Buffy, "one of two Buffy's present in the whole wide world. But I'm the twenty-two year old alcohol drinking Buffy who doesn't turn into a cave person," Dawn continues as she picks up the bottle of scotch and fills the large shot glass. She wishes she had been paying more attention to how much liquor Buffy had poured into the glass, but she had thought everything going on around her had been nothing more then a dream.

Buffy glowers at herself. She might seem less angry, but there was something even more off about her now then there had been. Everybody notices the changes in the Buffy standing before them. How it seemed like a completely different person then the one they had just meant a quarter of an hour ago.

"I know you guys are a little freaked about the whole thing," Dawn continues as puts the bottle of scotch down. "And quite frankly so ain't I, but I can assure you I am the real Buffy from two thousand and three. Spike's chip doesn't work on demons but before you jump to the wrong conclusion just let me state that I'm not some type of demon doppelganger, evil clone, or anything else like that. I died for a few months, Willow resurrected, as in a not flesh eating zombie kind of way, me and ever since then Spike's chip doesn't go off when he punches me," she says in a rush.

Everyone looks at her in shock, but nobody more so then Willow. The fact that Buffy had died wasn't that big of a surprise. She was the slayer after all and eventually ever slayer does dies. But the fact that Willow had brought her back from the dead. It was a feat that Willow knew she wasn't even close to being able to perform at her current level of knowledge and power. She wasn't even able to turn Amy back to girl, yet in the future she was going to be able to raise the dead.

Lifting the shot glass to her lips she tilts her head back and downs the liquor in one gulp. It feels as if her inside have suddenly burst into flames as the liquid burns its way down her throat. "Holy!" She chokes crushing the glass in her hand as her left hand bangs into the countertop.

Giles gapes as not only does Buffy palm slap send a crack spiderwebbing its way through out his counter top, but because his counter visibly sunk half a foot into his floor. "The way your going Slayer I don't think Watcher here is going to have a roof over his head 'fore much longer," Spike comments with a wide smirk lighting his face.

Dawn looks at Spike, the person she had been avoiding looking at, and her face goes beat red as she remembers the feel of his skin under her hands, the feel of his penis through his jeans. How just being pressed against him had set her entire bo... "I gotta go," she says suddenly running towards the door.

She had moved so fast that the only people who had been able to follow her had been Buffy and Spike. All the rest of the group had seen was a streaking blur that went from the kitchen to the front door and stopped there.

Turning the knob she jerks the door open ripping it off it's hinges. Dawn looks at it for a brief moment in shock before finally placing it against the wall, "Xander can fix that," she mutters confidently. Looking back over her shoulder she tells the assembled group, "I gonna go patrol. Stop that evil from running amok in the world. Make it a safer place for Christmas, and puppies, and bad poets everywhere," before she dashes off into the night.

Willow blinks as she looks around, "did anybody else find that kind of..."

"Odd?"

"Bizarre?"

"Strange?"

"Weird?"

Come from four different mouths at the same time. "Yeah," she agrees.

Spike shakes his head wondering if that was somehow another jab at the man he had been a hundred and twenty years ago. Grabbing his coat, along with Xander's flannel shirt Spike heads to the door, "where do you think you going?" Buffy asks not sounding angry just wanting to know.

"Somebody's got to make sure she doesn't do something evil," Spike grins mischievously for a moment before he to bolts out the front door.

"You're just going to let him?" Xander squawks.

Buffy shrugs lightly, "he's got the chip in his head. It's not like he can hurt anyone," she points out not sure why she wasn't worried about Spike being out on his own.

She was there inside her house moving around. With Buffy's exceptional hearing Dawn was able to listen to every little sound that Joyce made while she gets ready for bed. Occasionally Joyce would pass in front of the window Dawn peered through. Unlike herself or Buffy, both of whom are well short of five and a half feet and thin as a rail, the matriarch of the Summers women is a tall, regal woman.

It was tearing Dawn apart standing outside, what will one day be her home, watching her mother go about her nightly routine. Right now she was getting ready to watch the nightly news. Something she did every night with a cup of her special cocoa. What made it her special blend of hot cocoa was the little shot of peppermint schnapps she adds to it.

"Lurking doesn't really suit you Slayer," Spike comments as he steps up next to her. He had been watching her for some time now. Watching the tears that slowly slide down her cheeks while she watches her mother. He was fairly certain he knew why she was crying, why this would have been the first place she had gone to once she left the watchers flat. "I don't think your mum would mind if you drop in for a visit," he suggest. A second later a slight smirk quirks the coner of his mouth, "even if it did take you three years to get here."

Dawn shakes her head, "she wouldn't even know me," comes her stinging reply. It was true. At this time Joyce Summers only had one daughter, Buffy. To her Dawn doesn't even exists. She wouldn't exists for another nine months. She could walk in there right now tell Joyce the entire story, or what she knew of it and whatever emotional response her mother had it would be for Buffy.

Turning on her heel Dawn looks at Spike, and again she can feel Buffy's body respond to the vampire standing next to her. Intense desires that were slowly driving her insane as she fought with them for control. True she had always had a crush on Spike, had always wanted to ravish him until he turned into a mindless puddle at her feet, but she wanted it to be her feet. "Feel up to killing some of your old buddies?" She asks Spike instead of doing what she really wants to do to him right at this moment.

In the back of her head she can feel Buffy stirring, imperceptibly, before settling back down. She wonders if Buffy is aware of what she's doing right now like she was aware of what Buffy was doing. Or if Buffy was simply dreaming, and if it was a dream what was she dreaming about. Then she remembers what Buffy had done to Spike earlier and the satiated way Buffy had almost felt as she neared the surface and her face reaches a deep crimson color before she can turn away from Spike.

Spike's smirk falters for a moment as he watches the Slayer's blue eyes cloud with lust for an instant as she flushes with desire as she gazes at him. She ducks her head either out of shyness or shame, though after what she did earlier either emotion doesn't really seem appropriate for her. "Sure pet," Spike answers and can't help but smile as her still red face brightens even further at his response. "Been awhile since I've had a good spot of violence to liven up my day. What with thinking I couldn't hurt anything. Tell you something luv, me..." Points to himself then at Buffy, "... You working together. We could own this burg. Take out those pansy ass, nancy boys put this chip..."

"Spike I'm not helping you become the new master of Sunnydale," Dawn interrupts him.

"Oh," Spike replies slightly disappointed.

Dawn sighs, "I just want to go out and kill something. I am the slayer after all and it's my job to make sure all the evil demons know I'm in town doing my part..."

"If you want to kill something fine, I'm all up for that. Just save the watcher spiel for people who actual believe it," Spike grumbles softly.

"Right," Dawn agrees. "No stuffy watcher speak. Got it," she continues as she looks at Spike, "so what do you want to talk about?" She finally brings herself to ask the blonde vampire.

"Well..."

"Watch!" Spike begins to shout from his perch atop one of Sunnydale's many crypts, but stops himself. "Never mind," he finishes in a barely audible sigh as the slayer had spun around backfisting the vampire that he had thought had the drop on her. The vampire in question had sailed backwards at speeds Spike had thought were unattainable without being in the cockpit of a stealth fighter. His head had made contact with the tree with an audible thud before slowly falling away. Spike was impressed, the vampire's face had left a noticeable impression in the tree.

Spike turns his attention back to the fight at hand. Not that he would ever actually call it a fight. It ranked more on the level of a serious thrashing. The Slayer against five, now four vampires. The skill the slayer had displayed earlier at the Watcher's flat had disappeared only to be replaced by raw power. Her strength was phenomenal, her speed unprecedented, and she took shots that he thought would have leveled her without so much as batting an eyelash.

It was like she was testing herself, finding out what she could do, what she was capable of, and having the time of her life doing it. He had never seen any creature look so alive before in his life. Now if he could only get his Slayer to cut loose like this, to admit to herself that this was what she enjoyed...

His mind cuts off as he realizes what he was thinking. Growling low in his throat he rises back to his full height. Plucking his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket he quickly lights one and inhales deeply.

There was no way he had just thought of the Slayer as his. This one or the other. They were slayers, he was a vampire and just because circumstances forced them into this uneasy truce, alliance, or whatever it wanted to called, it didn't mean he was going to become attached to either of them. He was simply helping them out because he could still have fun and fight and kill things with this damn chip in his head.

"Do you see that?" Forrest questions his two companions as they watch the fight from the safety of scrubs some hundred meters away.

"Definitely hostile seventeen," Riley answers. "Plus it looks like his friend that helped him escape from Stevenson Hall has shown herself again," he adds concentrating on the blonde girl decimating the vampires she was engaged with. There was something familiar about the girl that tugged at the back of his mind. It was like he should know her, or he did know her.

"No time like the present to get him back," Forrest responds. "while we're at it we can bag his little playmate as well."

"That's a negative," Riley orders. Forrest glares at his superior, "look at her," Riley commands. "A pack of vamps that would take us half a dozen squads to take down and she's ripping through them like they were children. I can see how she was able to manhandle us before."

"That's what we have these for," Forest responds padding his tazer.

"And what happens if it doesn't work on her. You wanna face that with your bare hands?" He demands in a fierce whisper.

"I'm not afraid of her," he blusters.

"Neither am I," Riley responds angrily at the implication behind his friends comment. "I'm not an idiot either," he shoots back. "We watch them, follow them, and pick our spot to bag them."

"God I'm stuff," Dawn mumbles pleasantly satiated as she pushes away the remains of the third large pizza she's eaten in the past hour. For the first time since waking up in Buffy's body she didn't feel the gnawing ache in her gut telling her to eat. It had only taken her three large pizzas, two orders of fried mozzarella sticks, a large order of potato skins, and three extra large cokes to get her that way. She could almost feel Buffy's body converting the enormous meal to muscle and flesh that Buffy's diet had stripped it of.

"If you say so," Spike mumbles blowing smoke out of his mouth and nose.

"Trust me, I've never felt this full in my entire life. If I had gills I'd be stuffed to them," she finishes with a smile. "Or possible overstuffed. Stuffed to the point stuff would be..."

"Got the point Pet," Spike responds with a slight smile. Realizing what he's doing he scowls at her, blaming her for the turmoil he's feeling. "No need for you to go and kill it like you did everything else tonight."

Dawn frowns at Spike's comment, "did I do something to piss you off?" She inquires, worried that Spike may not like her.

Spike can see the tears that start to form in Buffy's eyes and curses himself for the fool he is. He shouldn't care that he hurt the Slayer's delicate feelings but he can't help that he does. "Course not," he replies. "Just knowing those twits that put this sodding chip in my head are still out there, walking, talking, breathing, and the like and I can't do a bloody thing to them because of it. Makes me a bit irritable is all," he says taking another drag off his cigarette before crushing the spent stub out in the discarded food. "Nothing you need worry your pretty little head over. Least not until I get this piece of U. S. plastic and wire out of my head, then me and you'll be having ourselves a reckoning."

Dawn smiles at Spike's boisterous talk. He was just like the Spike she remembers before his and Buffy's turbulent affair, all bragging and boastful about what he was going to do, or what he had done. This was the Spike she had developed a crush on when she was just a little fourteen year old girl. She didn't know how Buffy had been able to resist him for as long as she had, especially not with the way her body was reacting around him. It was taking every once of control she had not to throw herself at him and ravish him the way Buffy had earlier.

Going through her pockets she searches for the money she was sure Buffy was carrying. After all what kind of idiot went around time travelling without carrying at least a little bit of cash on her. Obviously she had her answer. Buffy.

"Problem Pet?"

Dawn nods her head, "little one. Seems like I didn't really think through this whole travel to the past."

"No cash?"

"I got pocket lint if that counts?" Dawn comments with a little shrug, "I don't suppose you'd go all vamp face on the clerk would you. Kinda scare him into giving us the meal for free," Dawn suggest with a hopeful little smile.

Spike blinks at the Slayer, at the suggestion that had just popped out of her mouth. It was something he never thought he'd hear come out of the Slayer's mouth. He wondered what could have happened to her in three years that would even allow her to think of doing something like what she had just suggested. Suddenly he comes back to the moment as she sits there staring at him with those pleading eyes of hers. "Bloody hell," he mutters sliding out of his chair.

Striding across black and white checkered floor to the cash register with all the swagger of a hundred and twenty year old master vampire. The clerk looks up as Spike approaches, black coat swishing around his legs. Suddenly Spike vamps out, then with a loud roar, he lunges menacingly at the young pimply face boy. The boy steps back, smelling slightly of fear but not anywhere near what Spike was used to.

"That'll be sixty-seven ninety-one," the boy says practically unfazed by Spike's appearance in front of him.

"What?" Spike gapes at him, "don't you know who I am?"

"Spike, right?" The cashier asks, "we heard the slayer had taken in a vamp with a..." He spends a moment searching for the right word, "...Performance problem but nobody knew it was you."

"Does everybody know everything in this bloody town?"

"Well I did graduate with Buffy last year, so there was that whole Mayor turning into a giant snake thing, but yeah pretty much," the kid replies to Spike. "Now will that be cash, check, or charge?"

"I'm not paying for a meal I didn't even eat."

"Well seeing how Buffy's already skipped out you don't really have a choice now do you?"

"What?" Spike gapes again as he spins towards the table him and the Slayer had been sitting at. Just like the kid had said she was long gone. "Bugger this," he mumbles walking away from the teenager.

"Hey you can't just leave without paying!" He shouts at Spike.

"Somebody's going to pay all right," Spike mumbles as he pulls open the glass door. "Bloody little chit thinks she can stiff me with the bill does she? Bint's got another thing coming."

________________________________________________________________________

Rainbow in the Dark - Dio

When there's lightning - it always bring me down  
Cause it's free and I see that it's me  
Who's lost and never found  
I cry for magic - I feel it dancing in the light  
But it was cold - I lost my hold  
To the shadows of the night  
  
There's no sign of the morning coming  
You've been left on your own  
Like a Rainbow in the Dark  
  
Do your demons - do they ever let you go  
When you've tried - do they hide -deep inside  
Is it someone that you know  
You're just a picture - just an image caught in time  
We're a lie - you and I  
We're words without a rhyme  
  
There's no sign of the morning coming  
You've been left on your own  
Like a Rainbow in the Dark  
  
When there's lightning - it always brings me down  
Cause it's free and I see that it's me  
Who's lost and never found  
Fell the magic -fell it dancing in the air  
But it's fear - and you'll hear  
It calling you beware  
  
There's no sign of the morning coming  
There's no sight of the day  
You've been left on your own  
Like a Rainbow in the Dark


	4. Chap 3: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

Chapter Three: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

Tara drags the fine tooth comb through her slick, darker then normal, luxuriant blonde hair. Like every morning she was awake as the early morning sunlight streamed in through her open blinds and only partially closed curtains. It was the only time of the day where she was almost guaranteed of not running into other people while she showered. Occasionally there would be the bleary eyed student just strolling in after a long night of partying or studying, but they seldom, if ever, acknowledge her presence in the hall as they stumbled off to their room.

One final stroke through her hair and she places her comb back on her dresser. As she begins changing out of the sweats she wore to and from the shower into the clothes she had set out the night before; a light blue ankle length skirt, a plain white blouse, and a long sleeve beige sweater. Tara was able to concentrate on the larger issues in her life at the moment. Like how she was going to introduce herself to the beguiling redhead that had caught her eye at the wicca meetings last month.

A few discreet inquires and she had managed to learn that the girl's name is, Willow Rosenburg. That she has lived in Sunnydale all her life. That her boyfriend had recently left town one night without so much as a word to anyone. Tara felt terrible for Willow, for what she must be going through right now. At the same time she was glad, relieved. Exuberant would probably be closer to describing her feelings on the matter. All of which made her feel guilty because she wasn't feeling guilty.

She wanted to introduce herself to Willow only she didn't want to seem like she was throwing herself at the younger girl. So she needed to find an excuse, a reason why she would just suddenly look up a near complete stranger without it seeming like she was stalking her. The only thing they had in common was magic, but what if Willow didn't actually believe in magic. What if she was like the rest of the girls that went to the wicca meetings, using it solely as a place to meet people.

It was catch twenty-two. She wanted the girl yet she couldn't bring herself to make the first move. Too caught up in her own inner turmoil, guilt, and embarrassment to actually go out and get the girl. What she needed was a sign, a miracle of some kind. It didn't have to be a big miracle, a little one would do just as nicely for Tara at this...

A quite knock at her door pulls Tara from her thoughts. Looking at the small digital clock next to her bedside table the blonde wonders who could be showing up at her door at five minutes to seven on a Wednesday morning. True she had a small group of friends that had been known to stop by without warning, but they normally waited until later in the day to drop in unannounced.

The person on the other side of her door knocks again. Tara comes to with a start as she realizes she has just been standing in the middle of her room while somebody stood on the other side of her door. Giving herself a quick once over, just to make sure everything was in order, that her clothes hadn't suddenly vanished without a trace since she put them on, she rushes over to the door.

Pulling the obstruction open, nearly tripping over her feet in her haste, her heart tries jumping out of her chest as she forgets how to breath. There, at her door, turning back around to face her, a brilliant smile lighting up her entire face, the entire hall as far as Tara could tell, was the girl that had been plaguing her thoughts, dreams, every single moment of her existence since first setting eyes on her. Her soft jade eyes shone with all the warmth of a thousand suns as they gazed upon the taller blonde. At least that was how much heat Tara felt radiating out of them as her entire body flushes from head to toe. Ducking her head she allows her long hair to fall over her face hoping Willow didn't see her coloring just by looking at her.

"Hey," Willow greets the blonde brightly glad that this was the person she was looking for. "I don't know if you remember me from wicca group, or if..."

"Willow r-right?" Tara asks not believing she was actually there in front of her. She feels like doing flips as the entire North American butterfly population takes up residence inside her stomach.

"Right," Willow says blowing out a relieved breath. "I wasn't sure if you were the Tara I was looking for since I didn't know your last name, but since you're like the only Tara in the campus directory I figured I'd take a chance and stop by and find out first hand if you were the Tara from wicca group which you obviously are since you're her and it makes finding you so much easier then having to hack my way into Sunnydale's Department of Power and Utilities looking for you if you happened to live off campus not that I'm stalking you or anything it's just a friend of mine's in sorta trouble and I was kinda hoping that maybe you could help us figure out how to help her?"

Tara blinks several times as she tries to follow what Willow was saying, she really did, but the words went by in a rush as she found herself enraptured by the way her lips were moving and not the sounds coming out of her mouth. She feels her insides knot up as she looks at Willow. No matter what kind of relationship develops with Willow eventually she was going to have to speak and speaking was just not something she was very good at doing. "Um, m-mayb-be you c-c-oul-ld r-r-rep-peat w-what you j-jus-st s-said. J-j-just a lit-t-tle s-slower, and w-w-with periods."

Willow doesn't lose her smile as she looks at Tara. If anything the redhead's cheeks brighten slightly, no where near the color of her hair, but still it was something brighter then they had been a moment before. "Sorry about that," Willow apologizes extremely embarrassed that she had just gone into full fledged babble mode like that in front of a complete stranger. "When I'm nervous I kinda of babble and segue without really segueing..."

"W-w-would you l-like t-t-to come in?" Tara asks Willow shyly as she steps to the side.

Willow nods, "that'd probably be better then standing in the hallway while I explain what's going on that I need to pop up at your doorstep first thing on a Wednesday morning asking for help and I'm starting to babble again. I'll just step inside now," she says snapping her mouth shut while suiting her actions to her words entering Tara's room. "Then I'll lock BabbleWillow up for awhile while I explain why I did show up all unexpected on your doorstep," she finishes as Tara swings the door close behind her.

Lying on her side, her head resting lightly on her right hand with her elbow driven into the soft feathered pillow, Anya gently strokes her soft hand over Xander's shoulder. She was chewing on her full lower lip as she tried to think of a way to keep Xander safe from future Buffy. Spending eleven hundred years dispensing vengeance, to those deserving of her wrath, had given her a great deal of insight on the subject of angry women and Buffy epitomize each and every quality she had ever seen. Then again she also displayed several traits of someone suffering from a multiple personality disorder as well.

Definitely a person that Xander would do quite well to stay away from, especially considering how most of her rage was directed either at him or at Giles. She knew that keeping Xander away from the people he thought of as his friends was an impossible task as proven less then seven months ago when he stayed in town to help them prepare a battle against the Mayor of Sunnydale on his day of Ascension despite his lack of special skills or abilities. As improbable as it seemed at the time they had actually won the day, saved lots of lives, and destroyed a true demon in the process.

She wanted to demand that he stay away from them. That his only concern be keeping himself in peek physical shape so he could provide her with the many orgasms she normally enjoyed during sex. Anya knew better then to ask Xander to stay away from his friends, no matter how much she disliked them, or how often they interrupted their sex, or how being around them constantly placed them in harm's way. She had thought about withholding sex from him, if he continued associating with Willow and the others, as a form of bribery, but she didn't see why she should be punished while she forced him around to her way of thinking.

Poking him sharply in his tender ribs Xander jerks awake with a barely stifled cursed. "Jesus, Anya," he groans settling tenderly back down into the firm mattress.

"I'm sorry," she lies to him. "I didn't mean to wake you," she coos softly not seeing a point in him knowing the truth. "I just wanted to make sure you're alright," she adds not realizing she just told him the truth.

Xander smiles wanly at Anya. "Aside from sore ribs that wake me up every half hour I'm peachy," he replies as he closes his eyes and tries to drift back to sleep. "Although it's probably a good thing I don't have job right now. I'd just have to call in sick, telling them how I bruised them playing rugby or some other lame British sport like cribbage."

"That's a card game hon," Anya informs him politely.

"A really rough game of cribbage then, were they use rugby rules," he mumbles starting to fall back to sleep only to feel another sharp jab from Anya's finger. "Christ Anya, what the hell is it?" He growls at the ex-vengeance demon as he rolls back over with a sharp grimace.

"I want you to be nice to Buffy," Anya answers in a rush.

Xander blinks several times, "An I'm always nice to Buff. Hell I'd never not be nice to Buffy," he informs his lover. Leaning upwards he gives her a soft peck on the cheek, "now if that's all..."

"You're not always nice to Buffy," Anya snaps out. When she had felt Cordelia's pain and decided that she was deserving of a wish she had first looked into the situation as was proscribed by the elders. She needed to determine if the man, Xander in this case, was truly the cause of the woman's pain or not. She had complete discretion in determining if the man was to blame in all her cases, not that she had ever found a case where the man wasn't at fault for the pain the women were in. With Xander it had been easy to determine he was the cause of Cordelia's pain. "Besides I wasn't talking about Buffy from this time," Anya clarifies her statement for Xander. "I was referring to the Buffy from our future, or the future that would have been if she hadn't come back in time," Anya shakes her head clearing it of the headache thinking about time travel causes her.

Sometimes Xander thought it was more then his sanity was worth dating the ex-vengeance demon. Out of all the women that he had dated she still had the most original way of trying to end his existence: Mrs. French had wanted to eat his head while having sex with him, Empada had wanted to suck the life out of him, so hadn't Cordiela but in an entirely different way, Faith had simply tried to choke him to death.

Anya had been original. She had created an entire reality were he was a vampire that wound up getting staked by Buffy. Unlike all the other women who had tried to kill him in the course of his life, Anya had at least done it before they had ever gone out on a date. "Fine," Xander grumbles, "if it'll let me get a little in peace in quite then I'll be nice to Buffy."

Anya shakes her head as Xander lies back down, "good," she sighs lying down next to him. With a content smile on her face she snuggles in closer to the man she loves. She was happy that Xander was going to be nice to Buffy. It meant that Xander would soon be able to perform all of his manly duties. Mainly providing her with many, many orgasms.

The image on the screen changes showing a different girl's image for a moment before changing again to show yet a third girl, then a fourth, and a fifth. Each woman had several qualities in common with the others. They were all young, had blonde hair, and resided within Sunnydale and had been photographed on surveillance cameras located throughout the town.

Riley Finn's intense blue eyes stare at the images flickering past on the computer monitor as if he could simply will the image he desired to see to appear on the screen before him. He knew the woman he had seen last night. Knew it like he had never known anything before, of that he was positive. It was a feeling, deep in his gut, that he couldn't get rid of no matter how hard he tried. So instead of getting any sleep last night he had come here, commandeered a work station, fed the computer his criteria, and allowed it to sift through all the surveillance photo's stored in it's massive hard drives.

"And here I thought frat boys slept till noon," Professor Maggie Welsh jokes as she stops behind Riley. Taking a sip of her coffee she gazes at the images flashing past on the computer screen. Pressing her thin lips together she moves her bone thin frame to Riley's side, "you know there are easier ways for you to find a girl to date. Ways that don't involve you violating their constitutional rights." A small smile creases Riley's lips for a moment, "besides I thought you were smitten with the Summers girl?" She probes politely.

Riley freezes, a look of shock, horror, and anger settle over his face. "Stupid son of a..." He hisses pissed at himself that he didn't see it last night. Of course it was just the other night that Buffy had told him she was marrying this Spike guy, hostile seventeen if he didn't know any better.

"What is it?" Welsh demands never having seen this look of betrayal marring Riley's face before. Placing a hand on his shoulder, trying to lend him what ever support she could she again asks, "Riley what's wrong?"

Riley's thick fingers stab at the keyboard in front of him as he replies, "have you had a chance to go over last nights mission reports?"

"I was just on my way," she tells him.

"We ran across hostile seventeen last night. He wasn't alone," he adds quickly before Professor Welsh can ask why he hadn't been recaptured. "In fact I believe he was with the hostile who orchestrated his escape from Stevenson Hall," he states knowing full well him and his team would receive a reprimand for lying on a mission statement. "You'll understand why we didn't try to tag it last night after reading the report, suffice to say I didn't think one squad would be capable of bringing her down. Not without fatalities anyway."

"Just what the hell did you run into last night?"

"This," Riley answers as Buffy's collage I.D. photo materializes on the monitor. "That was what we saw last night. Either the real thing or something mimicking her likeness."

"Summers, Buffy A," Welsh says tapping her finger over her lips. "She's an outstanding student if a little quirky. Strong willed, not afraid to stand up for herself or her friends, but always acting like she has something to hide. Why pose as a collage student though?" Welsh inquires deep in thought, "why Sunnydale? What's here that draws hostiles in?"

"I don't know," Riley answers, "but whatever it is Hostile Seventeen and... They were taking out everything that got in their path."

Welsh nods, "possibly trying to claim a territory as their own. Its what predators do when they move into an area, kill off the competition." Looking down at Riley she says, "you're going to have to get close to her." She stops seeing Riley stiffen at the suggestion, "you're the only one that can. You're already established because of your attempts to start a relationship with it. If someone new were to come along now it might raise it's suspicions and until we find out what it's intentions are we can't have it being suspicious of anything."

"Yes mam," Riley replies stiffly.

Giles slaps another of his books close as he leans back in his chair with a deep sigh. He drops the book onto his leg as he pulls his glasses off and pinches his nose between thumb and forefinger. Yesterday had blurred into today without a whimper and him barely aware enough to notice the change as he had stayed up all night going through his books looking for anything that could explain this situation to his satisfaction.

Unfortunately he hadn't even begun to scratch the surface and already he felt his chances of finding even a slim lead slip from despairing to abysmal the more he researched. He had found demons that could traverse time as easily as crossing the street. He had found demons that could either assume somebody else's identity, though that involved them sucking all the life experiences out of their minds leaving the person little more then a vegetable. He had found demons that could morph their physical features, but that didn't gain them any knowledge of the person. True it could be some kind group venture to sow discord amongst Buffy and her friends, but Giles just didn't see any factions of demons banding together to accomplish an objective of this magnitude.

There had been one person, demon, Giles wasn't quite sure what he was, called Sahjhan that fit the bill quite nicely. Time travel, cast glamours on himself to look like other people, gain knowledge by literally going back or forth through time to watch events unfold. Fortunately he was completely incorporeal. He couldn't effect solid matter in the slightest, with a quick glance at his countertop he shudders, which was extremely good consider the type of person he had been when he was last a flesh and blood being.

Shifting his head he looks up towards his room. With some trepidation he wonders which Buffy he was going to be subjected to when she finally awoke today. The girl who barely controlled her fury towards anyone she came in contact with, with the exception of Spike. In which case she barely controlled other desires no less primal if far less life threatening.

Or the Buffy that had come back from patrol last night almost glowing with the biggest grin he had ever seen plastered across her face. He had almost asked her what she had done with Spike, but had decided he would rather not know what the two of them had been up to. He was, to say the least, stunned beyond words when she had plopped down on his couch lying flat on her back and asked him if he had found anything. He had answered her honestly and she had inquired as to which tomes he was delving through, again he told her the truth and was slightly disconcerted when she nodded her head appreciatively at the titles he mentioned.

Then she did something, which would have knock him off his feet had he been standing. It was something the Buffy he knew would never had done. She had actually suggested several other volumes for him to peruse in his quest to find answers. Books he had in fact been planning to search once he had finished with his current selections.

How Buffy had even known the titles, much less what the books contained within their covers, beggared his imagination. It wasn't that he thought Buffy was stupid, her S.A.T. scores proved otherwise, it was simply that she chose to remain ignorant of what she considered his field of expertise. Or anything else she thought of as uncool.

After offering her advice she had yawned, stretching her thin body out on his couch he listened with a slight grimace as her joints began popping back into place while she shifted her body. Rising to her feet she had given him a soft peck on the forehead along with a whispered thank you and gone up to the room she had confiscated to sleep away the rest of the night. While he stayed down below, more determined then ever to find out what was going on with the girl sleeping in his room.

Tossing the book down, where his coffee table had once been, he stands up stretching his arms over his head and bending back slightly he feels his spine slip back into place. Knowing today was going to be an extremely long day, one in which large quantities of tea were going to be in great demand if he was going to stay awake to find anything of use, he walks into his kitchen trying to ignore the giant spiderweb crack in his countertop.

A task all but impossible as he began to gather the materials he would need to brew his tea. The fact that his countertop was now below his belt buckle was not lost on the him either. With a disgruntle shake of his head he realizes that with the damage inflicted to the countertop alone he very much doubted he would get his security deposit back when he finally left Sunnydale.

Settling the teapot onto his stovetop he pulls a ceramic cup from his cupboard as a soft knock at his door lets him know somebody has arrived. Giving his apartment a quick once over, just to make sure as much of the debris is gone as is possible, Buffy and Willow having given him a hand in clearing out the broken furniture last night before they had left. Only the couch and the countertop still showed signs of the struggle that had taken place within the room.

Looking at the door a moment before he carefully pulls it open he realizes they weren't the only thing to still show signs of damage. While the door looked like it was secure it was in fact held on by very little. The locks had been set when Buffy had opened it last night, the inch in a half piece of steel had been snapped cleanly in half when she had twisted the door handle. Sections of the doorframe had been broken off when she had jerked the door open, and the hinges had been ripped completely out of the other side of the casing.

With extreme caution he opens the door to the sight of a brightly smiling Willow and a taller, blonde hair girl who seemed to be hiding a rather lovely face behind a mop of long blonde hair. Knowing Willow as well as he did he could only assume that she had taken the initiative and gone ahead and contacted the Tara girl that Buffy had mentioned. Her soft blue eyes gazed up at him almost fearfully.

"Hi Giles," Willow greets him cheerfully. Far too cheerfully for someone who hasn't slept in over a day. "You'll never guess who I happened to run into?"

Giles manages to give the youngster a brief, if somewhat mirthless, smile as he says, "if by run into you mean showing up at their doorstep at some ungodly hour of the morning then I'm assuming this must be Tara." He extends his hand to the young woman.

The young girl lightly takes his hand as if she was afraid he was going to hurt her. "Tara this is Giles, or Mr. Giles, Giles this Tara Maclay," Willow introduces the two of them.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet," Giles greets Tara as she extricates her hand from his grip.

With everything Willow had told her about Mr. Giles Tara almost felt like she was meeting Willow's father. With as important as Willow had made him out to be she thought that he might be more important to the redhead then her biological father was. She wanted to make her best impression, better then any impression she ever made on anyone before. Swallowing she tries to meet his soft, grandfatherly brown eyes. "W-willow's t-told me s-so much ab-b-bout you," she says painfully slow trying to pronounce each word without her normal stutter. Failing to do so she drops her head even further allowing her hair to hide her face.

Giles quickly steps out of the way as he gestures the pair of women inside, "please why don't you come in?" With as much care as he had used opening the door he now uses it to close the heavy door. He understood quite well just how damaging even a mild stutter could be for a person, and Tara's stutter seemed to be anything but mild. It might be easier for her if she didn't feel intimidated by the people around her, perhaps if she was talking about something she had some knowledge or took a special interest in. "I understand that your a practicing witch," Giles says leading the girls to the counter.

Tara looks at the counter with wonderment. She had believed Willow when she had told of the events of the previous day, but until seeing the evidence she hadn't truly believed it. Now that she was seeing the evidence it just made it that much more real. "I-I'm s-s-sorry," she says realizing that Giles had said something to her and she hadn't heard what it was. It was like she was meeting the parents of the first person she had ever dated and she was making one blunder right after another. In a way that was exactly what was happening since she had never dated anyone in high school. She had simply long from afar.

"Its quite alright," Giles assures her as he makes his way into his kitchen on the other side of his counter. "It can be rather disconcerting seeing something like this for the first time," he continues pulling a second cup out of the cupboard, "would you care for a cup of tea."

"You have to try Giles' tea," Willow exhorts the larger girl. "If you've never had tea from England then you have to try. Giles makes it just like they do since you know he's English because he comes from England because he was born over there and was raised by English people who..." she sputters off under Giles' unwavering stare.

Giles sees Tara's grin, only partial hidden by her hair, as she gazes longingly at Willow. For a moment he wonders just what type of relationship the two witches have in the future. He could still recall Buffy's comment from the other night. More importantly he remembered how she had said it, like it was a great secret. Pulling his mind back to the moment he again asks, "would you like a cup of tea or would you prefer..."

"T-tea w-would b-b-be fine," she manages to answer.

Giles nods his head as he pulls out a third cup just as the tea begins to steam releasing a shrill whistle. Quickly removing the kettle from the stove Giles places it in the middle of his serving tray before moving the tray to the counter. Placing the finely worked silver tray in-between himself in the two girls, studiously ignoring the look Tara continues to give Willow while the redhead babbles from one topic to another without any rhyme or reason that Giles can decipher, the retired librarian pours tea for everyone at the counter.

Clearing his throat softly he brings Willow to a halt. She colors slightly from falling back into her babble mode again. She didn't know why but she had been babbling all day long, just spontaneously going off on one tangent after another without pause.

Both girls turn their heads to look at Giles with almost equally guilty expressions on their faces. Willow from babbling and Tara from being caught gazing at Willow. Tara knew she was going to have to do a much better job at guarding herself while she was around Willow if she didn't want to frighten the younger girl off. She knew that Willow was straight, that she'd had a boyfriend. Tara knew all that but she didn't care. Even if all she ever got was to be Willow's friend then that was all that she would be. At least that way she would be able to be around the beautiful redhead.

"So just how long have you been practicing magic?" Giles inquires of Tara, again trying to set her at ease in her new surroundings.

Before Tara can say anything though the front door opens without so much as knock drawing everybody's eyes as Buffy slips inside carrying a small duffel bag. "Hey guys," she greets the room as she gingerly closes door. "Figured I'd bring my evil twin some clothes since it looked like she was traveling kinda light. You'd say we're about the same size right," she jokes tossing the bag to the floor behind the couch she turns to face the room. Taking in the new person sitting at Giles counter she gives Tara her brightest smile as she makes her way to the blonde that has yet to take her eyes off her. "Hi," Buffy says greeting her happily as she extends her hand to Tara who takes it without really thinking about what she was doing. "You must be Tara, I'm Buffy. Not the mad Buffy from the future, but the sane girl from now."

Tara couldn't believe what she was seeing from Buffy's aura. While far from being pure it was perhaps the noblest aura she had ever seen in her short life. Cracks were beginning to appear though, small, hardly even noticeable, and just around the edges. Dropping her eyes she lets go of Buffy's hand as she says, "its an honor to meet you."

"Give it a couple days," Buffy replies moving around to the kitchen where she pops open the door to Giles refrigerator. "Once the first apocalypse is averted it want seem so honorable," she adds pulling out a can of diet coke.

Tara frowns at the comment as Giles asks, "did anything interesting happen last night?"

"Not a thing," the tiny blonde answers opening the can and taking a sip of the soda. "It was dead, weather because Spike's soldier boys are way better then we thought or my future self is one hell of a bad ass," she finishes walking away from Giles.

"Speaking of which," Willow begins as she adds a tiny bit of cream to her tea. "Has anybody seen them since they took off out of here last night?"

Buffy shakes her head, "Buffy's upstairs, sleeping I believe. I haven't seen Spike since he left with her last night," Giles says noting the crease in Buffy's forehead at the mention of Spike's disappearance for the night.

The watcher is far from being only to notice the worried look on her face. "I'm sure he's fine," Willow consoles Buffy. "You know Spike. He can't take care of himself," Willow adds. "He's been..."

"Like I care what the hell happens to Spike," Buffy waspishly snaps at Willow instantly regretting it a moment later. "Look Spike's a big boy who can handle whatever comes his way."

Tara frowns at the smaller girl as she notices several of the cracks in her aura lengthen slightly with her denial. She was going to have to find a time to talk to Buffy about what she was seeing. It was not a conversation she was anticipating with anything remotely resembling excitement. It was however something that she had to do. If she didn't then Buffy would be heading down a very dark road.

Buffy stretches languidly as she slowly comes awake from the first fitless nights sleep she can remember having in nearly a month. For some unknown reason she felt satiated and energized all at the same time. She hadn't felt this vitalized in longer then she cares to remember, or can remember for that matter. There was the morning after her first night with Spike. For a brief moment that morning she had felt something close to this level of fulfillment. Then she had realized what had happened and she had stamped down on the confusing and burgeoning emotions that were washing through her mind and body.

For the first time in months she has woken up without the constant gnawing in the pit of her stomach. If she didn't know better she would say she felt good. There was no stiffness in her joints as she moved. All the minor aches and pains that had been plaguing her were gone. She actually felt like today might be better then the day before.

Scowling she pushes the feeling down. Berating herself savagely she once again reminds herself that she had no right to be happy, no right to feel good about herself while Spike was still gone, or while the Lurky still lived. She was going to have to do something about that. The demon had toyed with her, had taken amusement out of her pain. It was an insult that she just couldn't let go. She had promised the demon if he didn't give her what she wanted then she was going to kill him, and being stuck three years in the past was definitely not what she wanted.

Now all she had to do was find out everything she could about him, which meant long boring evenings stuck with Giles' books. A task she was not looking forward to, _or you could talk to the oldest living person you know_, the thought pops unbidden into her head. Amazingly enough the thought was oddly reminiscent of Dawn's superior, almost haughty tone of voice.

"Whatever," Buffy mumbles disgruntle even while she silently agrees with the voice. Anya just might be her best bet at getting information about Lurky. After all who should no more about a wish granting demon then an ex-wish granting demon. All she had to do was corner the former vengeance demon while Xander wasn't around, because seeing the walking joke right now really wasn't high on her list of priorities.

Tossing the blanket aside she stops in astonishment as she stares down at her nude body. She knows for a fact that she hadn't undressed after jumping on Giles bed last night, at least she didn't think she had undressed. Maybe it was something she did after she had fallen asleep. Not wanting to sleep in dirty and bloody clothes if she didn't have to so subconsciously, while she was sleeping, she had undressed and gotten under the covers.

Somewhat satisfied with her reasoning she slides her bone thin legs over the side of the bed. Picking up her jeans she slips them back on. Deciding her white blouse had seen better days she pulls upon Giles' armoire and rummages through the old English antique as she pulls out one of his dress shirts. Tossing it on the bed she pulls out one of his white t-shirts and slips it on over her head, then picks up the button down shirt and puts it on. Both shirts were far too large for her, but she didn't care. The entire philosophy of beggars can't be choosers flitting through her mind. After settling her feet into her boots she tucks the t-shirt into her jeans before snapping them up, pushing the sleeves of the dress shirt up she grabs Spike's duster and settles the heavy leather coat over her shoulders.

Turning towards the door she frowns slightly seeing the cracked casing. She hadn't meant to do that last night, then again she didn't even realize she had done it until now. Seeing Spike sitting there, as unconcerned about everything as he always was, had simple brought it all rushing back. She had a desperate need to get away from him before she had attacked him again.

Even now it was a struggle not to follow that pleasant tingle in the base of her spine that would unerringly lead her to Spike. He was farther away today then he had been yesterday, which was good because the closer he was to her the harder it was to fight her desire to take him wherever they were. Her body didn't understand that this wasn't her Spike, it didn't care. Spike was here that was all that mattered.

Pulling the door open she descends the stairs in a rush stopping at the foot, dead in her tracks, she takes in the room around her. More precisely she takes in the people in the room. Her heart feels as if it has simply stopped in her chest as she hear Tara's soft voice as the blonde witch replies to Willow's question. If asked she couldn't tell what words Tara had spoken.

She gazes at Tara as she sits at the counter a cup of Giles' tea, probably forgotten, warming her hands as her gentle, hazel eyes are simply enraptured with the sight of Willow as the redhead animatedly tells one of the gangs adventure from back in high school. On the kitchen side of the counter Giles refills his cup of tea as he corrects Willow on some minor detail that didn't really matter to anybody but him. Sitting on the arm of the couch was herself happily adding color commentary to Willow's story. Tara herself would smile shyly, or laugh lightly at whatever the person would say then go back to her intense study of Willow.

It was something she hadn't seen in over a year, everybody gathered around trying their best to make one person feel comfortable, welcomed within their group. She tries to remember when that had stopped being the way they did things. When they had stopped being nice just to be nice. Was it the day Tara died or had they split apart even before then. The day Xander left Anya at the alter, or did it happen while she was dead and their entire focus had been on resurrecting her, or was it the day they found out Dawn was the key and that all their memories had been altered to fit her little sister in them. Or maybe it was just the culmination of seven years worth of pain, suffering, and death that had finally wedged them apart.

True she had told Willow about Tara but she hadn't thought about what the repercussions of being in the past would be. Of all the things that had changed over the years, her mother's death, Dawn not being here despite what her memories to the contrary told her. There were things that she could change. Things she could make better, for herself, for everyone. Only she couldn't think of a single reason why she should make their lives better when they had done nothing but cause her misery.

__

Tara never hurt you, that annoying voice blurts out angrily inside her head, _and what you're just gonna let mom die_? _ Again_! _Like finding her body once wasn't bad enough_._ You're just gonna wait for it to happen_? _What a bitch_! _Maybe this time you'd like to be there_,_ sitting around having a cup of cocoa with her so you can watch her die_? _Would that make you_...

__

Fine, she hisses back at the annoying voice. The thing seems to be patterning itself after Dawn for some reason she can't fathom. She could almost feel her younger sister's I got my way smile in the back of her skull.

"Buffy," Giles greeting cuts through the haze in her head.

"Yeah," her younger self answers.

Giles lets out an exhausted sigh, as he plucks his glasses from his nose, "we're really going to have to something about names," he says tiredly as he rubs the bridge of his nose. Both Buffy's recognized the tone of Giles, I've been up all night researching, voice. At his comment all three girls turn their heads to the new comer as Giles says more loudly, "I hope you had a restful evening?"

Tara barely manages to hold back a gasp as she looks at the older version of the Buffy she had meant for the first time a few minutes ago.

"Hi Buffy," Willow greets her best friend from the future, at least she hoped she was still Buffy's best friend in the future. Only Buffy had said that Tara and her were best friends in the future, but that didn't mean she still couldn't be best friends with Buffy at the same time.

Buffy watches her older counterpart intently, but no matter how hard she looks she can't find any trace of the sunny disposition she had seen last night before she left the apartment to go on patrol. This was definitely the pissed off at the world Buffy that had first appeared here yesterday groping Spike like he was a special kind of squeeze me toy she couldn't get her fill of. Involuntarily she shudders at the image she just invoked with her wondering thoughts. She had no desire, what-so-ever, to see Spike naked, or to have her hands doing anything that involved touching the blonde vampire's body, let alone gripping the one part of his anatomy she has yet to see. "I brought you over some clothes, in case you wanted to change out of what you're wearing," she says cautiously to herself.

For some reason Giles sounded pleased to see her this morning. She was fairly positive the impression she left him with last night wasn't one he would be wanting to be experience again anytime soon. Buffy was still wary of her, though she was looking at her like she was expecting something else. Willow seemed to be sitting on cloud nine and was completely oblivious to the reason why. And poor Tara looked positively terrified to be looking at her. What a way to introduce the nicest person she was ever likely to meet to the chaos that is her life.

"I took your advice from last night," Willow continues cheerfully heedless of the tension building around her. "You know, to see if you were telling the truth. And well you probably already know Tara, but Tara this is Future Buffy," she frowns slightly. "We're going to have to come with something better to call you then Future Buffy..."

Without saying a word to anyone Buffy makes a beeline to the door and pulls it open only to have the door come off in her hand. She looks at it curiously for moment, there was almost a sense of something she had already done before. Leaning the door up against the wall she mumbles loud enough for everyone to hear, "should really have Xander fix that," before bolting out the door.

Giles looks from the door to Buffy asking, "did that seem oddly familiar?"

"It was almost exactly what she said last night," Willow answers having noticed the exact same thing as Giles. "Like she didn't even remember ripping the door of its hinges last night," she elaborates.

"She didn't," Buffy answers. "That was the I'm angry at the world Buffy that first appeared yesterday."

"That would certainly explain her odd behavior last night," Giles says as he explains what happened earlier this morning when Buffy had arrived back at the flat. "No offense to you Buffy but your knowledge of occult reference and demonology source material is somewhat lacking shall we say for lack of a better word."

Tara clears her throat trying to get everybody's attention. What she had to say was far to important for her to remain quite. "Guys," she manages to say strongly without any trace of her stutter. Once everyone's eyes were on her though she could feel her inside knotting up again, like everything inside of her wanting to get outside. Her lungs were burning and her heart was hammering inside her chest trying to find a way out.

That was until she felt a pair of soft, warm hands wrap around hers. The entire world just falls away from around her. Willow's reassuring voice was the only thing she hears, her words meant just for her and her alone. "Its okay, just take your time. You don't have to worry about what you say, how it comes out or anything else because nobody here is going to judge you. Heck none of the rest of us say anything the right way, except for Giles but that has to with the whole English thing, how nobody from England can speak in anything but perfect English. It's some obscure law in England and anybody that can't follow it gets deported to America where we can talk anyway we want so you just say what you have to say and we're just going to sit here and listen. Okay?"

Buffy watches as Tara seems to loose herself in Willow as she speaks to her. With the way Willow was returning Tara's look Buffy could tell the attraction was mutual. This was something she had never seen coming, Willow being attracted to a girl. Quickly she glances at Giles only to notice he's studiously cleaning his glasses that he had just cleaned several minutes ago.

Tara nods her head nearly a minute after Willow had finished her speech, "okay," she says just for Willow. Drawing upon the strength that Willow was lending her Tara turns to look at Buffy, she was the one that truly needed to understand what she had seen with her future self. "I c-can read people's aura's. The s-s-stronger the p-pers-son, the easier it is for me to see their aura," she admits hesitantly.

"Incredible! To actually have the strength and skill at such a young age. You must have had a phenomenal teacher to bring you so far," Giles states enthusiastically.

Tara blushes deeply at Giles' praise, "I did," she replies softly ducking her head again. "I t-try not to use it all the time, just to g-get a f-feel f-for a person. A lot of p-p-people just don't have very strong aura's anymore," she pauses trying to find the right way to say what she has to, "like they've allowed themselves to w-w-wither away inside. M-most people I can tell what kind of person they are by what I see: nice or mean, c-cruel or sensitive, protective or petty, the different combinations of qualities s-since nobody's ever just one thing. There are a few people, people so st-strong that they shine s-so brightly it almost hurts to look at them."

"So its like looking at a light then?" Buffy asks, "the brighter it is the better the person."

Tara shakes her head knowing she was going to have to give a fuller explanation to Buffy then she was prepared to do. Perhaps if she could explain it in the simplest terms she could think of, then maybe Buffy would understand. "The br-brightness doesn't indicate if the person is g-good or evil, it just measure of how s-strong a person is inside. P-picture a w-window stained with all the colors you can imagine. G-giles is v-very br-bright, like a reading lamp, lots of c-colors, but there are some d-dark undercurrents in his aura, but mostly he's very c-concerned of his l-loved ones and he's willing to commit qu-questionable, even evil acts in order to pr-protect the ones he cares for. Overall he's a v-very nice man, b-but not s-someone you'd w-want to make an enemy of.

"Wh-when I look at you it's l-like s-staring into a fl-flood lamp, a very br-bright sh-shiny, multi colored fl-flood lamp. Loving, noble, s-self-s-sacrificing. You'd give up everything to make everyone around you happy and destroy yourself in the process."

"What about?" Willow inquires looking out the door that Buffy had gone out.

Tara takes a deep breath, "it w-was almost like trying to read s-several people j-jammed into one place at the s-s-same time. There was a darkness, a sense of evil... I th-thought it was going to overwh-whelm me if I l-look at her t-t-too long, but at the same time there was an inn-innocence to her I-I've never seen in anyone before. Wh-what was Buffy, what was you in the future," she shudders slightly and Willow places her hand on Tara's shoulder offering her whatever strength she needed. Tara smiles grateful for the support, "r-remember that stained glass window I mentioned before?" At Buffy's nod she continues, "n-now imagine it dr-dropped to the fl-floor and shattered into a m-million p-pieces that somebody has come along and gr-ground into the f-f-finest powder. That's wh-what your aura is like in the future," she says a soft almost ominous whisper. It wasn't everything that she had seen when she had looked at Buffy but the rest of it wasn't anything anybody but Buffy, the one that had left, needed to be concerned with.

Buffy shivers at the proclamation, "how?" She asks in a small sliver of her normal voice.

Tara shakes her head, "I d-don't really know how," she admits. "You have to stop f-f-fighting w-w-with yourself. Your heart and your mind, your going to have to find a way to re-reconcile what you mind wants with wh-what your heart wants. If y-y-you d-don't th-then you might wind up j-j-just like your future self."

Buffy turns away from the Tara and her friends. Crossing her arms over her chest she brings her right hand to her mouth and begins nibbling on her fingernail. There was nothing that she was fighting with herself over. There was Spike, but that had nothing to do with her head or her heart. That was her body pure and simple, lusting after something that she couldn't have, shouldn't even be thinking about having. There had to be something else going on in her life, or that would be going on in her life, something that she didn't realize was troubling her yet.

"That was amazing," Willow gushes proudly, "you were amazing."

Tara cheeks redden even more at Willow's praise, "I d-d-didn't r-r-really do anyth-thing," she replies modestly. All she had done was look at Buffy and told her what she had seen. There was nothing praise worthy involved in that.

"Don't be silly. Saying all that stuff and you barely stuttered at all," Willow says warmly. The smile that shines on Tara warms the young witch from head to toe as her color brightens another shade deeper. "And all the information. You really helped us, we never would've known just how bad off Buffy was if it hadn't been for you. I mean...I'm assuming having your aura ground to powder is a bad thing?" She asks looking at Tara.

"It's a crippling experience for most people," Giles replies. "Only somebody with a truly indomitable will would be able to go on after having their aura shattered."

"What about somebody that's been possessed?" Willow questions thoughtfully going over the facts that she has. "It would explain why she's not acting like Buffy, plus it fits in with what Tara said about evil and innocent dominating her aura."

"N-n-not d-dominate," Tara asserts. "M-more l-l-like two s-s-separate aura's, and B-b-buffy's s-still th-there just in a l-lot of p-pain."

A flurry of motion pulls everyone's eyes to the door as a smoldering blanket comes bursting through the open doorway. "Spike," Giles mumbles in a hard voice. He had hoped he had seen the last of the blonde vampire when he hadn't shown up with Buffy last night.

Spike quickly tosses the blanket to the floor stomping on it to put out the small flames. "Bloody hell watcher. Figure you would've gotten the door fixed by now, any bloke can just come wandering in off the street way you got it now."

"Vampire!" Tara squawks in a loud voice.

Spike looks at the blonde that had just named him for what he is with a smoldering smile. The fear the girl was radiating now was practically intoxicating to him. "That's right, vampire here and its about time you folks started bloody remembering it," he says proudly.

Tara looks around at everybody else but nobody was paying the least bit of attention to the vampire Giles had called Spike. Then the name clicks in her head as she remembers their earlier conversation. This was the Spike that Buffy was fighting herself over. It was no wonder Buffy was fighting herself.

"Don't worry," Willow whispers loud enough for everyone to hear her. "Spike's harmless, at least to humans." She had expected her words to have a sort of calming influence on Tara but if anything she had gotten even more tense.

"That's right just go and tell everyone about it why don't you," Spike growls pulling a nearly fresh pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. "Spike went and got himself a sodding chip shoved in his brain," he adds lighting a cigarette. "Now he can't go around and snack on all the nice little human boys and girls like he wants to," he finishes as smoke billows out of his mouth.

Willow smiles at Spike as she says, "Spike this is Tara, he's kinda of good now..."

"Hey I'm still evil," Spike disagrees, "I just can't hurt humans anymore," he grosses morbidly.

Willow rolls her eyes at the vampires comment, "...he helps us sometimes since he got his chip."

"Pleasure to meet you pet," Spike mutters not seeing anyway around being nice to the girl. Besides it wasn't like she had ever done anything to him. It wasn't like she was Harris after all.

Giles glares at the vampire who was standing in the middle of his doorway. There was something to what Willow said. Spike was kind of good at the moment, but he had no doubt about what Spike would do if the chip ever came out of his head. "What do you want Spike?"

Spike's head snaps up to look at the watcher still ignoring the Slayer who was standing off to the side trying to remain unnoticed. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her upon entering the watchers flat but if she wanted to play this game he could play it as well as she could. "Your little houseguest, all miss innocent sweet school girl act she puts on," Spike begins his rant pacing in a small line in front of the group as his hand weaves a simple pattern to his mouth and back out again.

"What about her?" Giles asks quickly, hoping to cut off Spike's speech before it took him five minutes to get the point.

Spike blinks as stops almost mid step. "What about her?" He mimics Giles, "the sodding chit's bloody evil, is what about her." He gripes popping his cigarette into his mouth.

"You got proof?" Buffy demands, speaking for the first time since Spike's arrival, as she moves away from the wall.

"Better then that I was there when she committed her depraved act," Spike storms a moment before he begins pacing again.

Giles steps into the pallor asking Spike, "you were there and you didn't try to stop her?"

"I didn't even see it coming until it was all over," Spike replies blowing smoke. "One moment she's all politeness, smiles, la, la, la, la. The next she a conniving fiend and I'm left standing there holding the bag."

"Okay Spike," Willow soothes. "Its understandable you being upset and all. I mean who likes getting blamed for an atrocity when you didn't commit it right?"

"Bloody right," Spike agrees blowing smoke out from his mouth and nose.

"What exactly did she do?" Giles inquires.

"She skipped out on the soddin check," Spike rages. "There she is oh I'm hungry Spike, let's go to Anthony's over on Spruce..."

"I go there all the time," Buffy cuts in, "they got the best pies of anyplace in Sunnydale."

"That's what you said last night too, right before you ran up a seventy dollar bill then asked me to scare the clerk into giving us the meal for free, only while I'm doing my whole grr, your running out the bloody door without so much as a backward glance, leaving me standing there, in the middle of the sodding shop, like some wanker with my pecker in hand," he elaborates as he continues to puff angrily on his cigarette as he paces Giles' front room.

"Let me get this straight," Giles says trying to keep the smile off his face for the moment. "The other Buffy stiffed you with the check and you're calling her evil."

"Bloody hell right I am," Spike declares vehemently.

"And did you actually pay this bill?"

Spike snorts at the watcher's suggestion, "right. Like I'm gonna go around clearing the Slayer's tabs for her." Spike flips his burnt out stub of a cigarette through the watchers entrance. "So what are you going to do about this evil slayer you got on your hands?"

________________________________________________________________________

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - The Animals

Baby, do you understand me now  
Sometimes I feel a little mad  
But don't you know that no one alive  
Can always be an angel  
When things go wrong I seem to be bad  
But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good  
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood  
Baby, sometimes I'm so carefree  
With a joy that's hard to hide  
And sometimes it seems that all I have do is worry  
Then you're bound to see my other side  
But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good  
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood  
If I seem edgy I want you to know  
That I never mean to take it out on you  
Life has it's problems and I get my share  
And that's one thing I never meant to do  
Because I love you  
Oh, Oh baby don't you know I'm human  
Have thoughts like any other one  
Sometimes I find myself long regretting   
Some foolish thing some little simple thing I've done  
But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good  
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood  
Yes, I'm just a soul whose intentions are good  
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood  
Yes, I'm just a soul whose intentions are good  
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood


	5. Chap 4: Someday I'll Be Saturday Night

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Chapter Four: Someday I'll Be Saturday Night

Buffy wipes the blood from the slight gash in her forehead with the back of her hand. It had been a relatively easy fight for her against the four, whatever kind of demons she had been taking her aggression out on. She hadn't been in a mood to find out what species she was busy killing and they had been a little too busy fighting for their lives, if the futile scuffle they had put up could actually be called a fight, to tell her. One of them had manage to get in a lucky shot with a swipe of its powerful, thickly muscled tail. Maybe later on she would go through Giles' books and find out what they had been before she turned them into the equivalent of demon patties.

Seeing Tara had really gotten to her, more then she thought it would have. Being around people at that point had been a risky proposition. She had felt her guilt rising with every second that she had been in the room with her. The gentle witch was still one of the few people she felt true responsibility over not saving. It wasn't the same kind of remorse she felt when some random stranger got turned into vamp chowder. This was true guilt.

Inside her mouth she chews on her lower lip, her sharp incisors slicing into the soft flesh. The wound wasn't large or very deep but it was still enough to draw a few drops of her blood.

If she had been on her game the previous year the nerd squad never would have even become the minor annoyance they had managed to achieve in her live. They would have been dealt with when they first reared their ugly little geek heads. No muss, no fuss. Warren never would have become that big of a threat. Katrina never would have died, Tara never would have been killed, Willow never would have tried to destroy the world. So many things she wouldn't have had to feel guilt over if she had just taken care of the problem when it first showed itself.

Buffy was not the kind of person who handled guilt well. It was one of many emotions she handled rather poorly. She tended to internalize everything. Churn them up inside of herself, allowing them to build until they metamorphosed into something entirely different from what they had been originally. The usual result was rage, a blinding white hot fury she was just now learning how to channel into her fights. Much to the chagrin of the demon community.

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You know,_ if you actually talk to somebody maybe you wouldn't feel like a shit all the time_, her little inner voice informs her sagely. It had been doing it all day. Make a statement then stay quite for a time before making another. Seldom did any two go together. Most were pretty inane from what she could tell and had little, if anything, to do with what she was thinking. This however was one of those that had quite a lot to do with what was going on inside of her head.

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And just who would you have me talk to, _Xander_? She asks herself sarcastically.

She could almost hear the snort as her inner voice responds, _please I did say talk right_?_ Not beat the crap out of_. _You have got to start paying more attention_.

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Pay more attention to myself, she scoffs.

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You could do worse couldn't you? _Besides you already agreed talking to Anya about Lurky was a good idea and who suggested that_. _Huh_, _huh_, _huh_, _go ahead tell me again_._ Just who suggested that_? The voice gloats still sounding for all the world like Dawn when she won an argument with Buffy. _Plus mom_, _whose idea was that_.

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Fine. _I could do worse then listening to the little voice in my head_, Buffy admits wondering if that made her clinically insane. After all most people who claim to hear voices usually wound up on the six o'clock news proclaiming Satan ordered them to kill their classmates. _Does that make you happy_?

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Ecstatic. It answers her sounding as if it was in fact extremely happy. Buffy shakes her head as she continues walking down the alley, Spike's duster swishing around her legs. The entire experience taking on an extremely surreal quality. _Now you just have to actually talk to Anya_, the voice points out, _you know without the killing_, _maiming_, _or otherwise threatening her_.

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As long as Xander isn't around I think I can hold off on the evisceration of my friends, she responds pulling a fresh pack a cigarettes out of her pocket along with Spike's lighter. She frowns wondering how she had gotten that back. The last time she had seen it was night before, just prior to her running up to Giles' bedroom. Its a question she puts out of her head as she rips open the cellophane wrapping, pulls out one of the cigarettes, and places it between her lips before flipping the zippo open and lighting the unfiltered end.

Inhaling deeply she can almost feel the shock as the voice nearly shouts, _you're smoking_? _Since when did you start smoking_?

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Since...

Buffy growls internally silencing the voice inside her head. She walks between the dingy brick buildings in relative peace and quite for the first time all day. At least inside her skull quite reigns supreme. Outside the world was still moving forward as fast as it always was. Cars speed by, horns honking. The t.v. blares from an apartment somewhere nearby. The machines from a factory a few streets over whir and whistle, clank and clang as their operators push them harder then they should be pushed. Noise was all around her and as long as she could focus in on that she could silence the voice inside her skull.

Dawn however curses herself for not being able to hold her tongue, metaphorically speaking. She should have known when Buffy had started smoking. Its not like it was that hard to figure out. The aroma, the taste of it was a reminder of Spike. It was how she was keeping him fresh, maybe not in her memory, but the feel of him along her body. It would also explain Buffy's sudden fascination with hard liquor. She just hoped her older sister hadn't taken to drinking pig's, or worst yet, human blood.

For the first time Dawn was truly frightened not knowing if Buffy would be able to lock her away, somewhere in the back of her mind, and keep her there for the rest of her life. She didn't want her life to end up like that, trapped as nothing more then a discarded voice inside her sister's skull. She hadn't asked to be put here, she didn't want to be here, but she sure as hell wasn't just going to be shoved aside like yesterday's news. She was here and she wasn't going away any time soon from what she could tell.

Now all she had to do was figure out how Buffy was silencing her. It was one of many things the young girl didn't know and had to figure out if she was going to have a shot at keeping herself from being trapped in the dark recesses of her sister's mind. How her sister had been able to cut her off, why she couldn't rifle through Buffy's past memories, why she couldn't assert more control while Buffy was awake.

The entire situation was beginning to piss her off like nothing ever before. Then again she had been relatively pissed off ever since her sister had up and left her in Faith's care, not that Faith wasn't good at taking care of her, she was. In fact she had been extremely conscientious of her, almost too meticulous in her care.

Then just as she was adjusting, becoming comfortable with the concept of having no family anymore, of being an orphan. She was here, ripped out of the life she had started building just for herself and shoved inside Buffy's skull without being given the slightest chance to prepare, resist, told what was going to happen, or why it was happening. She felt violated on so many different levels she couldn't think of anything to describe it. She imagined it was like being raped only it was her mind that had been violated instead of her body.

Was she so connected to Buffy that wherever she went Dawn was forced to follow, only when Buffy had died she had lived on after her. Nothing she could think of made sense to her and the harder she tried to grasp hold of something the quicker it slipped through her fingers. Like squeezing a wet bar of soap, it would constantly pop out of her grasp and she had to scramble to hold onto the thought before it to slipped away from her.

What had happened to her body. It was a constant, troubling thought that her mind kept returning to. Was her body still alive. Even now in some strange alternate reality. Was Faith in some hospital room standing vigil over her body at some distant point three years in the future, an alternate timeline, or reality. Had she simply ceased to be, herself and all the memories that came about because of her simply gone, stripped away now that she was no longer there to hold everything together.

To anybody watching the slayer as she strode down the dank alley she look like the determined young woman that she was. Each stride caring her towards a destination nobody with enough common sense to avoid playing golf in the middle of a sever thunderstorm would dare attempt to impede her from reaching. Those that paid close attention to her as she strode past them would see something that would give even the densest man from stepping in her path reason to pause. Her eyes flickered between a light hazel to a solid aqua. From one eye to the other even within the same eye, without any discernable pattern.

Xander reaches over groggily, groaning in pain, as he attempts to answer his ringing telephone. His attempts hindered drastically by Anya's sleeping form draped over him. It still amazed him, eleven hundred years of raining blood and gore down on men the world over, yet Anya slept as soundly as any baby he ever saw. With nearly ten times as many years inflicting cruel, viscous, even torturous deaths as Angel, Xander had thought she would have spent an equally greater amount of time brooding as the dark vampire had.

Not that he thought that was physically possible giving the time restrictions, after all there were only twenty-four hours in a day, so trying to fit two hundred and thirty hours of brooding into a day was impossible. He thought Willow could figure out some mathematical equation that would work but he didn't really want to consider it.

Only Anya didn't brood, not even a single instant. She remained surprisingly guilt free. In fact, not only could she spend long hours recounting one horrifying tale after another without the slightest hesitation or flicker of remorse, she often did. He was still trying to break her into the entire concept of television, but her favorite genre happened to be male evisceration. A subject matter he found highly disturbing. Although recently she had taken an interest in porn, but she viewed more as instructional videos then entertainment.

Finally, after possible a dozen rings, he manages to grab hold of the receiver and bring it to his ear. "Hello," he mumbles sleepily into the mouthpiece.

"Xander," Buffy growls into the phone she holds to her ear.

"Hey Buffster. What's..."

"I need to talk to Anya," she cuts in not wanting to spend anymore time then absolutely necessary communicating with the man on the other end of the phone.

Xander shakes his head, "Wish I could Buff, but she's sleeping right now," he informs her.

Buffy suppresses the growl she feels rising in her chest as she patiently suggest, "wake her up then."

"I don't think you understand the folly of that statement," Xander barks a short laugh. "Trying to wake her up before she's had her full eight hours is like trying to dig your way to China. The more you shovel the deeper you get but your never gonna get there," he states sagely.

"Fine what time is she going to wake up?"

Xander blinks at the rough tone of her voice, "around noon or so."

"Have her meet me at the expresso pump by one," she orders.

"You sound a little tense, Buff. Is everything okay?" He inquires concerned for her welfare.

"Everything's fine," she snarls. "Just make sure Anya's there on time. And Xander, make sure she comes alone," she finishes with a hint of warning in her voice before she hangs Anya's telephone up.

She had come to the ex-vengeance demon's apartment hoping to find Anya alone. After knocking for nearly a minute she had come to the conclusion that Anya wasn't home which meant she had probably spent the night at Xander. Not wanting to see Xander, and not having change for a payphone, she had simply snapped the lock and entered the apartment. It wasn't like she was a vampire and needed to be invited in.

Dialing Xander's number she fervently hoped that it was Anya who answered the telephone because she didn't not want to deal with Xander on any level. Unfortunately her luck was holding true to form and he was the one who picked up the phone. She could almost feel her skin crawling just from the brief conversation she'd conducted with him.

Crossing the floor she exits the room without a backward glance. She still had nearly three hours to kill before she was suppose to meet Anya. Or to be more precise she had three hours that she could kill demons in before she was suppose to meet Anya. She should be able to get a few decent slayings done in three hours.

Giles sighs in exasperation. Spike was driving him up a wall. He had thought the vampire was a nuisance before, but he was finding out just how wrong he had been. That had barely been the tip of the iceberg as far as how annoying the platinum blonde vampire was capable of becoming. At least while he was chained up in his bathtub, with the threat of imminent staking hanging over his head if he didn't cooperate, Spike had been somewhat diligent in the dollops of information he doled out. Now with that particular threat having been taken away, and the vampire practically being given a free run of things, he took an almost sadistic amount of pleasure in making Giles dig for what he wanted he wanted to know.

"I already told you every bloody thing that happened," Spike growls as he takes the box of Wheat A Bix out of the cupboard over the stove.

"It doesn't make a bit of sense," Giles groans as he stirs his tea. "Are you..."

"Yes I'm bloody sure," Spike growls cutting off the watchers question as the microwave chimes letting Spike know his mug of blood was done. "I was bloody sure the first time I told you and I was bloody sure the tenth, and the twentieth, and I'm bloody sure this last sodding time I told you."

Giles shakes his, "tell me again. Exactly what happened, what was said just as they said it," he insists.

Spike pushes down his urge to snap the watchers neck just out of principle as the man continued to harass him. "Sodding hell," he growls moving into the pallor, "you're worst then a bloody chit you know that?" He questions settling down on Giles' still broken couch. "When are you going to get this thing fixed, got this nasty little spring that pokes out... Or better yet get a better one all together. There's this nice one down over at the landfill I was thinking about nicking for myself once I got a place of my own but if you want it we go down and get tomorrow night."

"Spike," Giles growls.

"Fine if its that bloody important to you," Spike replies sprinkling a handful of ground Wheat A Bix into his blood. "They finally managed to get Timmy..."

Buffy sat in her normal seat of Professor Welsh's class with Willow in the chair next to her. Her mind however was anywhere but on the class she was now attending. If it had been she might have noticed the furtive glances both Professor Welsh and her T.A. Riley Finn kept shooting in her direction.

Her mind was careening from one subject to another with zephyr like speed. Foremost on her mind was herself. She needed to know what had happened three years in the future to make her break apart like she had. There was an evil inside her that was so dark it consumed all light it came in contact with, yet there was something innocent overwhelming her as well.

It seemed to Buffy that the two entities were vying for control of her body. Possible without even being aware of the other one's existence. Almost like a split personality. One normally doesn't even know the other exist. Only this time it was the bad personality that didn't know about her good half, although if what Spike claimed was true she didn't know if good was exactly the right term for her other self's other side.

There was dominate side, which for Buffy seemed to be the evil, cruel, malicious side of her personality. Only that didn't really fit with what Tara had said. At her worst she hadn't done anything that was outright evil. She had done stuff out of anger and pain true, but nothing that could be construed as true evil.

Then there was what Tara had said about herself. About the conflict raging inside of her, between her head and her heart. Her first instinct told her that it had been about Spike but there was nothing to that line of thought. Neither her head nor her heart wanted Spike, so there had to be something else going on.

There was Faith still in a coma. She felt guilty over what had happened between them, but in the end Faith had made her own choices and was now suffering the consequences of her decisions. She still wishes she had known how to fix their tentative friendship back when it had shattered. She had tried, but it had been a halfhearted attempt at best.

And then they had killed Finch. True Faith had been the one holding the stake but she had been in the alley as well. In a court of law they were both equally responsible for his death. If only she had tried harder to reach her, but she had her own problems to deal with at the time and extending her hand just a little bit further had been more then she was willing to do. It would have meant excepting more of the responsibility of what had happened that night.

The question still pounded at the back of her skull, what was she going to do when Faith woke up. She was going to eventual, Buffy knew that despite what the doctors said to the opposite. It was like the old adage said, whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, only it was more so where slayers were concerned.

So Buffy was left with a difficult quandary. What to do with Faith? She didn't want to fight with her sister slayer, but she couldn't just let her run rampant doing whatever she felt like. The best she could hope for was that Faith woke up with a clear, I don't hate the world, attitude and wanted to pick up their friendship where it had fallen apart. Then hope her friends would simply accept Faith back with open arms as well. While she was busy pulling off those two miracles she figures she could find a way to end global hunger and then bring peace to the world. She thinks the last two would probably be the easier of the two to accomplish.

Her eyes look up as the bell rings picking out another one of her many problems. Riley Finn the nice, normal boy from Arkansas or Kansas or someplace equally dull sounding. The T.A. who has been showing a lot of attention to her lately. She still needed to figure out where she stood with him.

Did she have feelings for him. He was after all why Angel had left. So Buffy could have a nice normal life while she wasn't out killing demons at night and averting whatever apocalypse was rearing it's ugly little head that week.

He was nice and polite and tall and beefy and had the cutest little, aw shucks mam, smile that she had ever seen. A few undisciplined locks of his sandy blonde hair had a habit of falling in front of his eyes, forcing him to brush them back out of his way, when he dipped his head just right. In a word, he was exactly what has always made those little butterflies flutter in her stomach, caused her knees to go weak with desire.

Only he was as boring as a math exam and had the personality of popsicle stick. Plus there was something about him, a little tickle in her spider sense that warned her of danger when he was nearby. She truly wanted a normal relationship but she knew she had to be careful. Anybody that she dated was eventually going to get sucked into her world and that was something she didn't want to happen to anyone.

"So what did you think?" Willow asks gathering her books. Her voice finally breaking through the haze Buffy's thoughts had created as she realizes her friend has been talking for quite some time and she hadn't heard a single word she's said.

"It all sounds good to me," she responds hoping the blanket statement covers whatever the witch had said. Willow looks at Buffy with a slightly bemused expression marring her face and Buffy can tell the witch knows her friend had missed her question. "Sorry. I just had a lot on my mind," she apologizes lamely knowing it sounds lame even as she said it.

Willow rolls her shoulders slightly as she stands up, "yeah well with dissociative future self on loose if you didn't have a lot on your mind I'd say you were in a deep case of denial."

Buffy gives Willow a light smile as she stands, "thanks for the vote of confidence," she states her voice full of mock anger.

"Hey what..."

"Ms Summers," Professor Welsh interrupts them from behind her desk. "A moment of your time please," she request patiently.

Buffy gives Willow one of her I don't know looks with a shrug for added emphasis. "I'll catch up with you later," she tells her.

"The Expresso pump for a late lunch?" Willow suggest.

Buffy nods, "sure. See you then," she agrees as she turns around to face one of the harder professors she's had in her first semester.

She watches nervously as Welsh passes a thin handful of papers to her, "is this your report?" She demands in a voice devoid of anything remotely resembling human emotion.

Buffy takes the photocopied papers and glances them over flipping quickly through the pages. "Well it's not the one I turn..." She fades off under Welsh's unamused glare. "Yes," she admits with a small voice not knowing if its a good thing or a bad thing.

The hard professor nods her head, "it was an excellent report. Well thought out, clear, decisive."

"Really?" Buffy questions clearly surprised, she had done the actual writing of the report in just over four hours having Willow proof read it the night before class and making the necessary changes that morning.

"Really Buffy," Welsh agrees with just the ghost of a smile. "Granted it could have been fleshed out a little better, but overall it was a very strong paper. You made convincing, even valid arguments for all your points," she continues picking up her soft leather briefcase. "I'd actual like to get together with you sometime to go over some of your more radical view points."

Buffy beams ecstatic with Professor Welsh's praise, "sure. Whenever you want," she says putting the decision of when to meet entirely in the professor's hands.

"Riley will set something up," she answers. Looking at Riley she adds, "sometime early next week. Monday or Tuesday."

Riley nods his head giving Professor Welsh a curt, "yes mam."

"Good," she remarks. Nodding her head slightly to Buffy she says, "have a good afternoon Buffy, and I'll be anticipating our meeting."

Buffy returns her nod with a nervous little smile, "I'm looking forward to it too," she replies weakly. Welsh then whirls around leaving the lecture hall at a brisk pace. If Buffy didn't know better then she would think that professor Welsh couldn't get away from her fast enough. Then again she didn't know better.

Riley clears his throat from behind her reminding Buffy that she wasn't alone in the room. She turns around slowly buying herself as much time as she can to come to some decision concerning the handsome, if exceedingly dull, graduate student. Could she use him. Was there enough chemistry between them for a solid relationship to be built on, but how was she suppose to build a relationship that's going to last when she doesn't even tell him about largest part of her life. The part that everything else is built upon.

As she finishes turning around, tilting her head up to look at his well chiseled face there's a disturbing look spoiling Riley's otherwise sculpted features. It was there and gone in a flash, but for an instant he had been looking at her as if he was trying to dissect her. The fact it was there in the first place, let alone that Riley was able to hide it so quickly, sent a chill up spine.

"So anytime that you could squeeze me, late morning early afternoon, that would be great," she says trying to keep her voice light so Riley wont hear the tension his gaze put there.

He flips open a voluminous day planner, "let's see," he mumbles softly. "How's Tuesday at two fifteen?" He inquires looking up with his best farm boy smile.

"Sounds great," the tiny slayer agrees with forced cheerfulness, "Tuesday. Quarter after two. Got it," she says with a tiny fist pump. "Gotta go," she says turning quickly.

"Buffy," Riley's pleading voice stops her in her tracks. Scrunching her face up slightly she curses her too nice nature before smoothing her features and turning back around to face him. "Look I'd just like to apologize for the other night," he says sounding sincere. "Its just... It caught me off guard, and you have know idea what I'm talking about do you?" He questions reading her confused expression.

"To be honest I haven't a clue," she says confirming his statement.

"Window, wedding gown. You getting married to some guy you called Spike," he says hoping to trigger her memory.

"Oh that," she breathes out softly.

Riley nods, "that."

"Funny story that," Buffy says with a false little laugh.

"Really?"

"Yeah," she continue with another fake laugh. "See me and a bunch of my friends were playing a game kind of like truth or dare only in this game you have to convince ten people you know, but don't really know, of a lie that someone else thought up is really the truth. I got stuck having to try and convince ten people that I was getting married to a Billy Idol reject."

Riley smiles with shared as amusement as she giggles again. Shaking his head slightly he asks, "so you win?"

"Win what? Oh the game, no I couldn't convince anyone of that," she answers lightly. Laughing again she goes on in a slightly offended tone of voice, "I mean could you just imagine that, me and someone that looks like Billy Idol and goes around calling himself Spike. I would have to be the greatest actress in the world to pull that off."

Riley's grin widens with her story, "I don't know. You had me pretty much convinced," he admits.

Buffy gives him a lopsided grin, "what can I say?"

"Well you could say you're free Friday night," he suggest amiably. "There's a party and since your not getting..."

"Riley," Buffy cuts in. She couldn't do it. She couldn't use him and she couldn't drag him into her world. It wouldn't be fair to either one of them. "You're a really nice guy and all, but I just got out of one really turbulent, roller coaster of a ride, relationship and I'm just not interested in seeing anyone right now."

Riley blinks, stunned. He had never been turned down that fast before. He had never been turned down period. In his entire life all he ever had to do was open his mouth to ask some girl out and they said yes. "Did I do something to offend you?" He asks his tone of voice betraying his pain, his anger.

Buffy shakes her head, "it's not you," she assures him. "It's me. All me," she says thinking back over all of the people she's dated over the years. "All my relationships end the same way, oh everything starts out great. There's fireworks, and romance. Sometimes dating, by candle light under a starry sky. But then comes the darkness, and the pain. Woe, misery, and suffering are never far behind after that," she continues in a tiny voice. A light whimper escapes her throat, "and inevitable death," she says turning away from Riley. As she begins walking away he can still hear her mumbling softly, her voice fading the farther she gets from him, "a horrible, gruesome, draining, life sucking..."

The door to the mansion caves under Buffy's light knock. Stepping inside the vast foyer she scans the palatial chamber with determined eyes. If she was right, if her suspicions her correct then Jonathen's superstar spell was already underway and the world had been slowly molding itself around him for a long time now. Making him the worlds greatest everything that had ever been.

If not then she would track him down and deliver a massage he would remember long into the future. Without Jonathen and Andrew supporting him Warren would never have had the balls to lift a finger to her. Of course if she ran across Warren he was going to die. That was something both her and her little voice agreed on.

"Jonathen!" She screams at the top of her lungs striding across the polished tiled floor. Sniffing the air she thought she could small the little man. But with how much she wanted it to be him she also thought she was projecting again. "Jonathen! If you're in here and you make me hunt you down I'm going to spend the rest of my life making yours, all twenty-two minute of it, a living nightmare!" She bellows

She hears a soft whimper from above her on the second floor, "I know your here you sniveling little coward. And to think I actually saved your worthless live back in high school..."

__

You might want to go a little easier on him.

__

Why, she growls back, _he's not making things easy on me_.

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Like you said he's sniveling little coward. _If you were a sniveling little coward and I scream out that I'm going to paint the walls red with your blood would you go out and say_, _Hi_. _I'm the person you're looking for_, Dawn finishes in her best upbeat voice.

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Point, Buffy admits.

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Of course I've got a point, Dawn gloats basking in the fact that she's once again proven that she was smarter then Buffy. Or the fact that she wasn't as blood thirsty as her older sister. _Now go make nice with the nerd who's gonna spend the better part of his existence being a pain in your butt_, _before getting gutted by his best friend_.

Buffy still hadn't made up her mind about this voice she's patterned after Dawn. It seemed far too independent, but again Dawn herself could be independent at times, most of the time. All soft and meek on the outside but like an iron wall underneath. It was giving her good advice, making her think of things before she did them, acting almost as her conscious would if she still had one.

The fact that it had taken on Dawn's personality was almost a comfort to her. She missed her little sister terrible. Felt guilty about how she had just abandoned her like she did no matter the reasons. Now each and every time she heard Dawn's voice in her head it hurt almost as much as it consoles her. That was why she had to be careful right now. There were certain things she needed to have happen to insure the monks sent Dawn this time like they had last time. If they didn't she was going to have to track them down and force them to make her little sister.

Buffy reaches the top of the landing and looks around a moment before choosing a direction. "Jonathen," she calls out sweetly. "I'm sorry about what I said before when I broke down your door, I'll get someone to fix it, but we need to talk about a little spell you did," she says loud enough to be heard throughout the mansion. "I promise there's not going to be any violence what so ever. We just have to put an end to your spell before some body gets hurt," she says pushing open a door.

"Nobody suppose to get hurt," Jonathen says in a timid little voice from the other side of the a large bed.

Buffy nods stepping into the room, "I know that's what you believe but your spell creates a demon. The more popular you become, the more you force the world to your will the stronger it becomes. Eventually it hurts people you care about."

"That's not... I never wanted anybody to get hurt," he says sitting down on his bed, shoulders slumped, head hanging limply. He looks back up at Buffy with those sad little puppy dog eyes, "I just wanted to be popular," he says.

"I know," Buffy says placing a hand on his shoulder. She had come here looking to kick his ass or terrorize him but one look in his eyes and the anger she felt at him simply vanished as if it had never been. Even without Dawn's nagging she didn't think she would have been able to do anything to him.

__

Hey is that my name now, _Dawn_? Dawn asks hopefully.

Buffy jerks realizing what she had done. She had thought of her little voice as Dawn. She wondered if that was the second stage of developing a split personality. Naming a little voice. As she thought of it she realized she didn't care. If having a little sliver of her sister's personality living in her head kept her closer to Dawn then she'd accept it. Even if it did border on the psychotic. _How about Umad_? She asks her voice.

She can actually feel a smile crack her lips as her voice answers her, _cool_. _I can deal with being Umad_.

Jonathen looks up at Buffy watching her lips move as if she's having a conversation with herself. As he watches her closely he could swear that her eyes shift between two different colors. Her normal light hazel and a soft aqua.

For the first time in a very long time Tara didn't even notice all the other people around her as she sat in the crowded open air cafe Willow had taken her to. Her entire attention was focused solely on her redheaded companion and the conversation they were having. She had finally managed to expand her awareness of Willow to include the sound of her soft, sweet voice with all of the other wonderful qualities of Willow that she could lose herself in.

On more then one occasion she did lose the conversation while Willow spoke. Nowhere near as often as this morning and not for nearly as long but still far too often for her liking. She wanted to hear everything that Willow had to say, wanted to learn her opinions, her viewpoints, everything that made her who she is. More so she wanted Willow to learn everything there was to be learned about her, things she didn't even know about herself. In order to do that she would have to be an active participant in their conversations not just the shy girl who kept her mouth closed all the time.

She smiles as Willow comes to a stop while taking a sip of her decaffeinated strawberry flavored expresso. "Thi-this morning was int-teresting," she says with barely a hint of her normal stutter.

Willow looks up, a little foam on her upper lip that she licks off with her tongue. Tara quickly ducks her head to hide the blush that rises to her cheeks as images of Willow licking something for more intimate flash through her mind. "Just wait," Willow says as Tara takes a sip of her triple chocolate mocha. She could tell that there was something odd going on with Tara, with the way she wouldn't make eye contact or would gaze at her for long minutes while she babbles, or duck her head and hide her face behind her long blonde hair, but she couldn't place her finger on what it was. It would come to her. Eventually she would figure it out. "Once we have are first official scooby meeting and you get to meet the rest of the gang," she says patting the blondes hand.

"M-m-more?" Tara questions as she looks back up at Willow a slight trace of fear in her eyes. Meeting Giles and Buffy, both of them, and Spike had been taxing enough. She didn't know if she was ready to meet any more of Willow's friends. Especially not if they were anything like Spike. He was far from what she would call a normal vampire. A chip in his head didn't explain why he acted the way he did. Why he was nice to her in a I'm still evil kind of way that left little doubt that the entire act was all bluster. Since he was undead he didn't have an aura, at least not one she could read, so it was impossible for her to get an accurate read on him.

Willow nods her head, "it's only Xander and Anya. I'll try to bring you by Xander's parents house some time while Anya's not around."

"You d-don't like A-a-anya?" She asks enjoying the feel of Willow's hand on hers.

"Not like. Somehow that just... She's just Anya. She takes some getting used to," she explains subconsciously rubbing her thumb over the back of Tara's hand. "And I just haven't gotten used to her is all."

Tara smiles at Willow's slightly evasive answer. "I-it's alright if you d-don't like s-s-someone. Nobody is g-going to like everyone all the t-time. It doesn't m-make you a b-bad person or anything, it just means you're h-human."

"But she hasn't... Well okay she has given me reasons not to like her," Willow admits. "It's just that she adjusting to something new and I should be more forgiving and let the past stay in the past but every time I see her its all just right there again."

"It'll w-work itself out. J-just give it a li-little t-time," Tara advises the younger witch.

Willow nods slightly feeling content. "You're probably right."

The Expresso Pump was packed as usual for Wednesday at nearly one in the afternoon. Collage students, along with older working stiffs from among the local neighborhood shops and businesses, fill the little open air coffee shop. The restaurant hummed with conversation as people felt the need to communicate, commiserate, or to simply brag about their accomplishments in comparison to their rivals lack there of.

That was what Anya perceived the entire point of having a conversation with someone to be. It was the process by which one could make another person feel small, insignificant, and worthless while elevating yourself with a minimal amount of effort. Everyone in the cafe however was already previously engaged in the ritual known as chit chat and Xander had told that unless she knew the people it was rude to barge into their conversation. With a petulant pout she glances around looking for somebody about to finish their conversation so she could move in and have her turn at making them feel worse about their lives.

She hated arriving earlier anyplace, especially since regaining her humanity. She always felt so out of place among humans, plus she couldn't teleport where she needed to go anymore. It had really freed up so much of her day being able to pop in right on time. Never having to worry about travel time or traffic, congested or otherwise. No worrying weather your plane was going to fall out of the sky. She was still surprised that had taken off like it had.

Spotting Willow and an attractive blonde girl sitting at one of the tables, holding each other's hand, Anya decides to go over. After all she knew Willow so it wasn't like she was interrupting two complete strangers, only one stranger and one person she didn't much care for. Or at all.

Striding across the cafe to the table the two girls are sitting at Anya grabs one of the cafe's high stools from a nearby table and drags it over to Willow's table ignoring a startled, "hey. Someone was sitting there," called out by dark haired woman she didn't know.

Setting the stool on all four legs, she places her double mocha on the table as she sits down on the stools round, wooden surface. "Hello," she brusquely greets the pair.

Tara takes a look at the strange woman that just sat between them and quickly pulls her hand out of contact with Willow's. There was something very strange about her aura. All her colors were locked in one position, as if they had set so long they could no longer shift and flow like everyone else's. It was the first time Tara had ever seen anything like it.

Willow takes a quick look at Anya sitting down between her and Tara. "Anya," she squeaks alarmed at her presence in the small cafe. She quickly wonders what the ex-vengeance demon was doing here and if Xander was in the area since she never saw Anya without her best friend present. "Is Xander with you?"

Anya shakes her head at Willow's question turning her attention to the unknown girl who was staring at her with an expression of bafflement creasing her brow. "My name is Anya. Xander is Willow's best friend and my boyfriend. We have many orgasms together, Xander and I, not Willow. Although she did cause..."

"Why are you here?" Willow cuts Anya off with a high pitched squeak before she can say anything further. The last thing Willow wanted Tara to hear, at least from Anya, was how she had cheated on Oz with Xander resulting in Anya showing up in Sunnydale to grant Cordelia a wish because of the pain she was in. Casting a quick glance at Tara to check if she was okay she sees that her face has taken on a deep red coloring that shouldn't have been humanly possible. Her eyes were several sizes bigger and looked ready to pop out of their sockets, but she still seemed to be breathing. As far as Willow could tell it was a pretty standard reaction to meeting Anya for the first time.

"Buffy called Xander's this morning saying she wanted to talk to me. Alone. I guess she just wanted us girls to get together to do some female bonding," she states in her normal nearly emotionless, but slightly chipper sounding voice.

Willow takes a deep breath as she relaxes and tenses at the same time. If Buffy had invited Anya then it meant she wanted to include the ex-demon in the group more. That was good. The fact Willow despised Anya almost as much as she had ever hated Cordelia. That was bad.

Taking another look at Tara, Anya asks politely, "so are you Willow's new orgasm buddy?" Willow's mouth drops open as Tara's face brightens by half a dozen shades reaching an almost indescribable shade of lobster red. "Ever since Oz left Willow's been a little depressed, doing bad magic. Causing all sorts of chaos. D'hoffryn even offered Willow my old job as..."

"Hey!" A gruff voice snarls from behind them. The three young girls turn to look at a large man, easily several inches over six feet. He was wearing blue jeans and a black vest that even though it was left unbuttoned it still strained to contain his girth. Both of his arms together looked to be about the size of a large tree, and what hair the top of his bald head was lacking was made up for by his thick goatee. "That's my stool you got there missy," he growls at the thin blonde looking at him with something resembling indifferent annoyance.

Anya waves him off with a negligent flip of her wrist, "go get another one," she tells him turning back around already putting him out of her mind.

"Sir its really..." One of the servers begins trying to bar the large man's path.

He shoves him aside with barely a glance as he stalks forward. "I don't think you understand how things work," he snarls grabbing Anya by the shoulder pulling her around.

An extremely small hand grabs hold of his monstrously large one prying it off Anya's thin shoulder with ease. Everybody gasps as they see the tiny black clad woman that has come to the others rescue. There was a light bruise above her right eye and her bottom lip was split open still leaking a trickle of blood.

Buffy quickly twist his arm applying a small amount of the force she was capable of bringing to bare as she bent his wrist back almost to the point of snapping his hand off at the joint. He quickly drops to his knees as agonizing pain sears up his arm like a flash fire. He gasps for breath but only manages to swallow a minimal amount of oxygen as he chokes on the pain.

"I think it's you that doesn't understand how things work around here," Buffy says far too politely for the fury burning within her. Turning her head slightly she glances over at the three girls before turning her attention back to the thug she has kneeling at her feet. A part of her wanted to hurt him for threatening someone she had considered family for several years, probably always would consider family despite recent differences. Another part wanted him to suffer a horrifyingly slow, cruel, and ghastly demise. The kind of death that would be consider art in some circles. Then there was her little voice cautioning her for lenience, not to let the guy go unscathed, just not to do anything to drastic, crippling or disfiguring, to him, but to make sure he learns his lesson as well.

The first was her, the slayer side of her personality. The second was the residue left over from when the First Evil had infused a portion of itself with her after she had killed Caleb. The dreams it had for the world still filled her head and it's siren like call was almost more then she could bare at times. Right after Spike had sacrificed himself for the world had been the worse for her. The despair had nearly overwhelmed again, but she had fought. Spike had given her the strength to do that at least. Since being back in this time though the call wasn't nearly as bad as it had been three years in the future. Umad was helping quite a bit on the front though. Her little voice was actually extremely good at looking at the entire problem while she was normally to focused on what she wanted to consider the consequences of her actions.

"This is my town," she growls loud enough for everyone to hear. "You continue to live in Sunnydale at my sufferance. Weather I save your life some night or let this town's less desirable resident do what they will to you might just depend on if you've ever pissed me off or not. Can you guess which side of the line you fall on right now?" She inquires even though her voice leaves no doubt about which way she would choose.

__

That's what you call lenient? Umad questions Buffy unbelievingly.

__

Would you rather I sent him out of here with a little spanking and telling him to behave or next time I won't be so nice? Buffy grumbles internally as the man mumbles something unintelligible, "I can't understand a word your saying. You're gonna have to speak clearer, or maybe nod emphatically," she suggest.

Umad snorts, _I'd rather live in a world where everyone got a long with each other_, she answers sadly.

He quickly nods his head emphatically. _What fun would that be_? She inquires of her more compassionate self as she kicks him lightly towards the exit as she releases his hand. He skids half the distance on his backside. "Then I suggest you get the hell out of Sunnydale before word gets around that its open season on your fat carcass," she tells him as he rises to his knees clutching his throbbing wrist.

Turning her back on the man she faces three stunned faces. She didn't know why she was still surprised by looks ranging from dismayed shock to barely concealed fear on their faces. Even three years from now none of them could even begin to guess at just how strong she was, at how much she had to hold herself back just so she could fit in amongst normal humans and not have her friends looking at her like she was a freak. She was so tired of pretending. She wasn't a normal human and it was time everyone got used to it. "I thought I made it clear I wanted to talk to you alone," Buffy inquires looking Anya straight in the eyes.

Anya blinks as she realizes it wasn't fluffy Buffy that wanted to see her. "I didn't invite them," Anya ensures Buffy. "They were already here when I got here. In fact I was just suggesting to them that it would probably be for the best if they left as..."

Buffy grabs Anya by her upper arm with a vice like grip that Anya doesn't even try to break. Unlike everyone else she knew what a slayer was capable of having witnessed them in action several times over the millennium. Add to it that Buffy was one of the strongest slayers she had ever run across and that this Buffy made her younger counter part look like a rag doll in comparison. She wasn't about to tempt fate and do something that might anger her, at least not while there was nothing to be gained.

"Where are we going?" She asks slightly worried as Buffy practically drags her from the restaurant.

"Someplace private," was the only thing Buffy said. "Someplace we can have a conversation about Lurky without the entire world listening in," she growls softly.

"Lurky?" Anya asks coming to a halt. Only to be hauled forward as Buffy doesn't even notice her sudden stop. She stumbles forward several steps before finally managing to catch herself. "Nobody, and I mean nobody goes to Lurky. Not unless their desperate are insane. What type of a lunatic are you?"

"The kind that's going to kill him."

________________________________________________________________________

Someday I'll Be Saturday Night - Bon Jovi

Hey, man I'm alive I'm takin' each day and night at a time   
I'm feelin' like a Monday but someday I'll be Saturday night   
  
Hey, my name is Jim, where did I go wrong   
My life's a bargain basement, all the good shit's gone   
I just can't hold a job, where do I belong   
I'm sleeping in my car, my dreams move on   
  
My name is Billy Jean, my love was bought and sold   
I'm only sixteen, I feel a hundred years old   
My foster daddy went, took my innocence away   
The street life aint much better, but at least I get paid   
  
And Tuesday just might go my way   
It can't get worse than yesterday   
Thursdays, Fridays ain't been kind   
But somehow I'll survive   
  
Hey man I'm alive I'm takin' each day and night at a time   
Yeah I'm down, but I know I'll get by   
Hey hey hey hey, man gotta live my life   
Like I ain't got nothin' but this roll of the dice   
I'm feelin' like a Monday, but someday I'll be Saturday night   
  
Now I can't say my name, and tell you where I am   
I want to roll myself away, don't know if I can   
  
I wish that I could be in some other time and place   
With someone elses soul, someone elses face   
  
Oh, Tuesday just might go my way   
It can't get worse than yesterday   
Thursdays, Fridays ain't been kind   
But somehow I'll survive   
  
Hey, man I'm alive I'm takin' each day and night at a time   
Yeah I'm down, but I know I'll get by   
Hey hey hey hey, man gotta live my life   
I'm gonna pick up all the pieces and what's left of my pride   
I'm feelin' like a Monday, but someday I'll be Saturday night   
  
Saturday night Here we go   
Some day I'll be Saturday night   
I'll be back on my feet, I'll be doin' alright   
It may not be tomorrow baby, that's OK   
I ain't goin' down, gonna find a way, hey hey hey   
  
Hey man I'm alive I'm takin' each day and night at a time   
Yeah, I'm down, but I know I'll get by   
Hey hey hey hey, man, gotta live my life   
Like I ain't got nothin' but this roll of the dice   
I'm feelin' like a Monday, but someday I'll be Saturday night   
I'm feelin' like a Monday, but someday I'll be Saturday night   
Saturday night __________,all right, all right   
Saturday night 


	6. Chap 5: You Don't Know Me At All

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Chapter Five: You Don't Know Me at All

The soft wind had picked up slightly over the last several minutes. Or so it seemed to Willow after the turbulence of first Anya's and then a moment later Buffy's unexpected arrival and their even more abrupt departure. Together. That worried Willow nearly as much as Buffy's casual brutality of a total stranger.

True the guy had been a jerk and an asshole, and was likely about to do far worse to Anya then had been done to him. But seeing Buffy's open display of strength, hearing her sound so blase as she threatened a normal human had thrown Willow into a tailspin. She didn't know how to react to it. She had just sat on her stool frozen with a mixture of confusion, shock, and fear pumping through her as Buffy proclaimed Sunnydale to be her fiefdom and if anyone didn't like it they should get out now.

"A-are you a-alright?" Tara's shaky voice asks close to her as the blonde witch clutches her hand. Amazingly the feeling of the older girl's warm hands touching her calms the redhead dramatically.

Willow nods her head, "I've never... I mean there was the other night, but even that wasn't. She was just so distant, like she didn't care. She looked like she could of killed him and just... Smiled while she did it. Like she would have enjoyed doing it?" She shudders slightly feeling a chill race down her spine.

Tara wraps Willow's hand in both of hers lending the redhead what strength she has. "Whatever's wrong with her you'll figure out a way to help her," She assures Willow confidently without a single miss uttered word passing beyond her lips.

Willow smiles at the conviction in Tara's voice. "We should probably go find Buffy. Let her know what's happened," she suggest even though she doesn't want to move from where she's sitting for all the money in the world.

"Isn't she suppose to be meeting you here for lunch?" Tara inquires actually having heard something from their earlier conversation.

Willow's smile broadens as Tara found the excuse she was looking for to stay right where she was. "And it wouldn't really make sense to go running all over town looking for someone when their going to be showing up you're at anyway," she whispers conspiratorially to Tara.

Tara returns Willow's smile with one of her own. The two witches simple sit staring at each for several minutes with neither saying anything to ruin the magic of the moment. Then something that Anya had said before all the commotion springs into Willow's head, "oh," she groans thinking of a few ways to kill Anya that she'd like to try.

"What?" Tara questions sensing Willow's distressed.

"Anya," Willow answers quickly. Taking a deep breath she rushes on, "that's what I meant about her, she has this way of just blurting whatever is on her mind out. And since she's got sex on her brain twenty-four hours a day most of what gets blurted out has to do with sex and I just hope your not offended by..."

"I'm not," Tara says quietly seizing her opportunity to let Willow know how she feels. She had thought she could put aside her feelings for Willow. Keep them hidden, or at bay, but the more time she spent in her company the more she just wanting Willow to know everything about her. Especially the way she felt towards her.

Willow pauses at Tara's admission, "you're not?" She asks in a soft slightly confused voice. Tara blushes lightly but maintains eye contact with Willow as she gives a slight head shake. It was the first time Willow realizes just how often Tara does blush around her. "Does that mean you're a...?" She falters unable to finish the sentence. Tara nods slightly going even redder in the cheeks. "And you like me, like me?" She fumbles a little, her voice an octave softer then when she asked her previous question. A significantly larger nod and suddenly Willow can feel her own cheeks heat up. "Wow," the redhead breathes out stunned as everything slips into place; the stares, the asking her to repeat a lot of stuff, the shy looks, the blushing. "Wow," she repeats just as softly.

"I-I'l-I'll un-under-understand i-i-if y-y-you w-w-want m-m-me g-g-go," Tara says softly taking Willow's silence for rejection.

Feeling Tara start to pull her hands away Willow quickly tightens her hold on the blondes hand bringing her other hand up to insure she doesn't go anywhere. Looking Tara straight in the eyes she asks in a firm voice, "why would I want you to leave?" Not giving Tara the chance to answer her question she rushes on, "because you have feelings for me? Maybe even love me. Sure it's a shock, and I never saw it coming, and I don't know if I'll ever return your feelings, but that doesn't mean I want you out of my life. Far from it. I like you, I like hanging out with you, and quite frankly I haven't been this happy in months. I don't know if it's affection, or love, or just what it is but I do know I want to get to know you better, so you're not going anywhere," she finishes with a forceful nod of her head.

Again Tara's caught, spellbound by Willow, by her convictions and passion, as the young girl goes on and on. The difference between this time and all the others is that this time Tara heard every single word that gushed out from between Willow's full lips. She doesn't know how long the two of them sit there. Tara lost to Willow's determined gaze, Willow making sure that Tara wasn't going to try bolting like a startled doe.

That was how Buffy came upon them nearly ten minutes later. With her head hanging low, as she crosses the coffee shop, she misses all the questioning looks people give her. She drops down dejectedly on the stool Anya had dragged over. Sighing heavily Buffy settles her extra foamy vanilla latte on the table in front of her, "my life sucks," she mumbles before dropping her head to the table with a slight thud.

The sudden sound snapping the witches out of the spell they had woven around themselves with a start. "Hey," Willow says rubbing the tiny blonde's shoulder. "What's wrong Buffy?" She questions concerned for her best friend's well being.

"Riley asked me out," she mumbles without looking up from her vantage point.

Willow and Tara share confused looks as Willow inquires, "and that's a bad thing?"

Buffy lifts her head, noticing the hand holding going on between the two witches, something that only deepens her depression as she gives her simple one word answer, "yes."

"But I thought you wanted to go out with him?" Willow questions clearly confused by her friend's response.

Buffy sighs, "so didn't I. The whole nice, normal boyfriend. That's what I was going for, that's what Riley is, only its not. I mean how can I have a relationship with someone when I can't even tell them who I am. Or how do I explain it when I have to suddenly rush out in the middle of our date because there's a sudden apocalypse, once maybe I could get away, but twice. It's not fair to either of us," she rants angrily.

"Well maybe you could tell him," Willow suggest in a subdued voice finding it hard to read Buffy's mood.

"Right that would go over great. Hi honey guess what. I'm this super strong woman who's destiny it is to save the world night after night. Oh and by the way darling don't worry about the trash I'm way stronger then you anyway so I'll take it out with me on my way to kill evil creatures and for the last time no you can't come with me. You know I'll just be too worried about you getting hurt to effectively fight the bad monsters."

"Well sure when you put it like that," Willow mopes.

Buffy sighs, "look its no big," she mutters picking up her drink.

"But it is," Willow states angrily, "you deserve to be happy. You deserve to have someone that'll make you happy."

Buffy shrugs, "something will come along Will."

"You shouldn't have to settle for something that comes along," Willow argues. "You should have magic and romance, and all the things that everybody else gets to have. Just because its your destiny to save the world doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to enjoy everything else the world has to offer."

Buffy blinks surprised to hear Willow speaking so passionately, or sounding so vehement in her argument. She appreciated what her friend said and gave Willow a smile to show her so, but she didn't really feel like discussing her lack of a love life any longer. Especially not when something more interesting was obviously going on between Willow and Tara. "So anything new I should know about?" She asks with a sly grin that causes both girls to blush to the roots of their hair.

Anya looks crossly at Buffy as she pushes open the door to her apartment, "I was positive I locked that when I left here last night," she comments in a dry voice.

Buffy shrugs as she enters the cluttered room, "yeah well. Live in a lousy neighborhood and you never know who's gonna wonder in off the street," the tiny slayer informs her.

The ex-vengeance demon looks around her apartment with a keen eye, "nothing seems to be missing," she says slowly. "You'd think that a decent thief would have taken something after taking the time to break in. That's just unprofessional," she grumbles, disappointed in the level of professional pride among thieves in Sunnydale.

"You're assuming there was something here worth taking," Buffy remarks acidly.

"What's not to like?" She question annoyed that Buffy would make such a rude statement. Buffy shakes her head as she pulls out her cigarettes, "no you don't," she tells Buffy snatching away the pack. "I have at most another fifty to eighty years left. You will not be shortening my life by forcing me to inhale second hand smoke."

"Anya if you don't give me those back I'm going to shorten your life by fifty to eighty years," Buffy growls lowly.

Anya quickly hands the cigarettes back after a hasty look into Buffy's cold eyes, "fine. Go ahead kill me slowly."

Buffy snorts pulling out a cigarette, "trust me Anya. If I was going to kill you it would be anything but slow. You're annoying enough when you're not pleading for mercy," she finishes lighting the unfiltered end of her cigarette.

Anya glances at the crushed out stub of a half smoked cigarette, "it was you," she gasps in amazement. "You're the one that broke my lock. You were just going to let me go around..."

"Anya I really don't have time for this right now," she cuts in as she exhales a large cloud of smoke.

Anya swallows hard, "right you wanted to know about... How do you know about Lurky?"

Buffy faces away from Anya as she walks over to flick her ash into the saucer she had used this morning. "A friend told me about him," she answers in a low, soft voice.

"Is that how you got sent back here, passed his trails and wished to be sent three years into your past so you could avert some type of apo..."

"No, that's not what I wished for," Buffy hisses turning around to face the eleven-hundred year old young woman. "Do you think I'd want to come back to relive three of the hardest years of my life, or to watch myself live through the hell I had to. Do I really look like that big of sadomasochist to you?"

Anya shrugs, "from what I've seen of you over the last day. Yes, you definitely enjoy the pain. Both inflicting it upon others and having other people inflict it upon you," she answers not bothering to pull any punches with the enraged slayer. "What have you been doing with your time since you've been back?" She asks looking over Buffy's bloody clothes, "you've been out killing things haven't you. Fighting, looking for something that can hurt you, something you can hurt," she goes on before stopping to take a deep breath. "The others might be too afraid to tell you that," she pauses for a moment, "hell even I feel like I'm going to soil myself anytime now, but unlike everyone else I have something you need so I'm safe for the moment."

"What makes you think I won't just beat you to get the information I want out of you?" Buffy asks allowing the menace to shine in her voice. "Like you said, I enjoy pain."

Anya swallows hard again, "nothing, but then again nothing would prevent it anyway. Torture however takes time and there's no guarantee that what I tell you would be true," she answers the slayer truthfully. "Besides there are other ways to get what you want."

Buffy glares inhaling the last of her cigarette. Crushing the spent stub out in the impromptu ashtray she turns her full attention on Anya asking in a harsh whisper, "what do you want?"

Locking eyes with Buffy Anya answers, "amnesty for Xander and myself."

Buffy laughs, "you want..." Getting herself back under control she returns her gaze to the older girl. "Tell you what, you keep Xander leashed like a good little lap dog, and I won't beat him death every time I see him. How's that for Amnesty?"

"I don't think you really understand how this bargaining works Buffy. I have something you want, you can guarantee something I want," she says confidently. "Are you beginning to pick up how this going to work out?"

"Should have expected something like this from you," she smiles almost approvingly.

"Leave Xander alone," Anya repeats in a hard voice. She was hoping Buffy would agree to her proposal, or at least make a counter offer. Something a little bit more reasonable then her last offer. What she was truly hoping the tiny blonde didn't do was tell her to screw off a split second before she got on with torturing her for the information she wanted.

Buffy shakes her head as she says, "that's just not going to happen. As long as he's in the same room with me his mouth is going to be moving. Words are going to flow out from between his lips. Words I'm going to find very offensive and I'm going to have to beat him," she smiles at the thought. After a moment she dreamily adds, "repeatedly."

"You'll kill him," Anya chokes out.

Buffy's smile broadens deeply, "now you're beginning to see the beauty of my plan. I knew you'd be able to appreciate it. Inflict as much suffering as possible, dragging their pain out, until they die a miserable, broken person."

"I'm not going to tell you anything about Lurky without you agreeing to this," Anya tells her sensing Buffy's mounting impatience.

Buffy shrugs unconcerned by Anya's declaration. "Here's the thing Anya. A little fact you might not be aware since you used to torture people as punishment for their supposed crimes. The more you enjoy it, inflicting unimaginable pain on another living being. The more that sensation of causing someone pain fills you with joy, the quicker you are to break. Usually," she says never losing her smile.

__

What are you doing? Umad questions her.

__

Whatever it takes to get Spike back, she answers inside her head as she says aloud, "I'm kinda hoping I don't have to find out Anya."

__

You can't torture Anya, _she's our friend. You can't just go around torturing our friends_.

"You were a friend of mine, kind of," she informs both of them. With a deep sigh she adds, "just tell me what I want to know and you can go back to enjoying your life with Xander."

__

Work something out with her, she cries desperately feeling Buffy preparing herself for what she felt she had to do. _Cut a deal_, _give her Xander's amnesty_. _Would it really be that bad if_...

__

Yes! She rages back as she spins away from Anya clutching her hair. _Or don't you remember seven years of having to listen to every hateful thing_, _every veiled innuendo_, _every spiteful comment that ever came out of his mouth_ _with a deaf ear_._ First_ _because I chose Angel over him and then later because I was with Spike instead of him_. _I'm not going to put up with it again, and I'm not going to let him do it to her_.

__

Even if it means never having Spike back at your side?

__

I may never have Spike at my side again anyway, she answers Umad with just a touch of resignation. _And sometimes there are things more important then personal happiness_.

Dawn sighs inside Buffy's, her, head. She could tell Buffy wasn't about to budge from her position. _What about making a deal that gives you an out_? She finally asks coming up with the only thing she can think of.

__

Like what?

Anya watches the tiny slayer as she paces back and forth in her small room. She was finding the display rather disturbing. Buffy had her eyes closed yet she never came close to knocking anything over as she wound her way through the room. Her mouth was constantly moving as if she was holding an argument with herself. A fact that gave credence to everyone's suspicions that the older Buffy was mentally unstable. She wasn't able to hear what she was saying to herself and for that she was sort of grateful, especially when she seemed to become angry with herself. Besides that listening to an insane person argue with themselves wasn't as entertaining as most people would think. Most of the time what they said came out as nothing more then unintelligible gibberish because you never knew who was talking at any given time.

"Here's the deal," Buffy says turning around to face Anya. "He gets ten comments, remarks, jokes, insult, whatever, anything that I find offensive ..."

"Which would be pretty much everything," Anya snaps.

Buffy gives her indifferent roll of her shoulders, "...that he can make in my presence without me hitting him," she finishes giving her the details of her deal. "That of course is dependent on you giving me useful information about Lurky," she adds pulling another cigarette out of her pack. "I suggest you take the deal Anya," she says igniting the end of her cigarette. "This way, with careful planning, Xander at least has a shot at living a long healthy life. Besides you really wouldn't like me going back to my original plan."

__

God do you always have to threaten people?

__

It gets their attention.

__

Remember, _you catch more flies with honey then a stick_.

Anya sighs, it wasn't what she had been hoping for, but it was better then nothing at all. Like Buffy told her with planning she could in fact keep Xander from harm. All she had to do was make sure Xander and future Buffy were never around each other long enough for Xander to open his mouth. "When you took Lurky's trails what did you wish for?"

"Well it wasn't so much a wish as a statement of fact," Buffy replies as she exhales billowing smoke.

Anya takes another deep breath, "fine what did you say to Lurky," she amends.

"Give me what I want or I'll kill," Buffy says defensively.

Anya rolls her eyes, "by the lower beasts. What were you thinking?"

"What? Its not like I had to say anything. He can read my mind. He knew what I wanted."

"Really! You wanted to be three years in the past?" Anya asks derisively pointing out the obvious.

Buffy flicks her ashes in the saucer as she mumbles, "not really my first choice, but hey now that I'm here why don't we see what I can do about correcting everything. Starting with your boyfriend," she threatens idly.

Anya ignores Buffy's threat as she replies, "Lurky is a very special demon. Unlike us vengeance demons who have to work within the guide lines set by the person's stated wish he has a slightly broader scope. He can look into a person's heart and mind to see what they truly want. If the person's indecisive, unsure, or in anyway hesitant then he has free reign to do as he pleases in granting the wish, so long as he gives the person what they wished for. That's why going to him is really a double edged sword, even if you past the trials you more then likely not going to get what you want."

"So me being here..."

"Is somehow related to what you wanted," Anya finishes for her. "Possibly to, as you stated, correct the past. Only you hardly seem to be correcting anything so that probably wasn't the crux of your desire."

"Spike," Buffy says softly. "I wanted to be with Spike."

"I'm assuming Spike died in the future," Anya comments not waiting for Buffy's answering nod before she shakes her own head. "If that was all then he probably would have sent you to whatever dimension Spike's essence went to. More then likely killing you instantly. No you must have wanted something specific, or possibly too much," she says her facing lighting up.

"What?"

"If there was nothing you clearly wanted above anything else, like if everything was all tumbled together, then Lurky.."

"Could do what he pleases as long as he gives the person what they want," Buffy finishes for her.

Anya nods, "within reason, but since your here I guess it was," she says as she watches Buffy carefully. She could almost see the wheels turning inside the tiny blondes head as she began thinking about what she was going to do next.

The subterranean complex like always bustled with activity. Doctors and scientist rushing from one place to another with purpose. Soldiers standing ready to move at the first sign of insurrection, while others move throughout the compound patrolling their stark corridors with a keen eye looking for anything that might be out of place.

A few however move through the sterile halls with little outward concern for the events taking place around them. Wearing puke green sweats and carrying small gym bags it was easy to tell the trio were heading to the compounds gymnasium. "So demon girl turned you down flat?" Forest says with a little chuckle, "what happened to all that wholesome Iowa charm your known for?" He continues with a light glint in his dark eyes. He liked Riley, trusted him with his life, but sometimes he thought the mid-western farm boy had a stick shoved up his ass.

Riley shakes his head, "I have know idea. One moment we're clicking, then the next thing I know she was walking off muttering something about a slow agonizing death. Or something like that," he says in a slight fog as he still tries to figure out what had happened.

"Tell you what it is," Forest replies. "You don't have any freaky qualities. And these here demon chicks like their man with something a little extra. Foot long tentacles, scales, maybe a third eye. Face it man you're way too normal to be getting yourself that piece of ass."

Riley's face reddens slightly at Forest's implication that he couldn't get Buffy to go out on a date with him. "What you don't think that I can't get her if I want her?" As far as he was concerned Buffy should be grateful he had even shown the slightest interest in her when he thought she was human.

"Man, she shot you down dead. There's not even enough left of you're chance with her to try resuscitation. It's DOA"

"You thinks so?"

"I know so," Forest answers.

"If you're so sure then put your money were you mouth is," Riley challenges him.

Forest smirks lightly, "a bet?"

"Yeah," Riley agrees. "I got a thousand bucks says she'll agree to a date with me."

"Your awfully sure of yourself," Forest says considering the bet as they cross into the vast gym. "It has to be a real date, it can be some spontaneous meeting where the two of you decide to share dinner or something. You have to ask, she has to say yes."

Riley nods his head as he extends his hand. "What about a time limit?" Graham asks before the two can shake hands.

Forest thinks for a moment, "before we tag and bag her ass," he says taking Riley's hand.

"Done," Riley says as the two of them shake.

Buffy's fist slams into a large green scaled demon chest, who even on his knees, had a head that was still a foot over hers. This was the third demon she had come across since she had entered Sunnydale's sewer system fifteen minutes after leaving Anya's apartment. The ex-vengeance demon had been extremely helpful in figuring out how she had managed to get back here, just as her information had helped her figure out what she had to do in order to get Spike back.

One of the demon's slime covered tentacle like arm smashes into Buffy's chest sending the tiny slayer flying back to crash into the concrete wall before falling to the muck covering the floor. She's back on her feet launching herself at the creature before he had the chance to get back to his full height. Her right foot smashes into his chest toppling him like a giant statue crashing to the ground.

She was going to be leaving tomorrow night. She knew that much, but she didn't know what she was going to be doing between now and then. _Well there's always this nifty thing called sleeping_, Umad reminds her as she begins to pummel the demon's excuse for a face. _People say it's great for things like resting_. _Recharging ones batteries_, _but hey what do I know_.

__

There's a lot of time between now and when I'm going to be leaving, Buffy informs her.

__

So you're just gonna run around in the muck, _beating up on the hapless residents of our fine sewers_? _Isn't there anyone that you want to go see_? _You know someone you don't want to kill_.

__

I already saw Jonathan, Buffy answers lifting the demon into the air and hurling him against the wall. His soft body enables it to survive what would have been a killing impact for a lot of other creatures.

Dawn snorts at her older sister's comment, _please you so wanted to kill him before I talked you out of it_. Buffy considers that as she steps on the demon's squishy back and grabs hold of it's head. With a savage jerk she rips the thing's head from his shoulders releasing a thick stream of watery, yellowish fluid from the gapping wound. _Well that was kinda gross_.

Buffy laughs at that. Out of everything she had seen over the years to find there was a little piece of her that still found something as mundane as the color of a demon's blood to be gross amused her.

__

It's not funny, Dawn informs her.

__

Yes it is.

__

Is not.

__

Is so.

__

Not.

__

So.

__

Not.

__

So.

__

Stop that, Dawn says gruffly as their voices almost seemed to merge together at the end.

__

Kinda of confusing hugh? Buffy asks Umad as she gives her head a mental shake to clear it up.

__

No, Dawn answers. _Really confusing_, she replies with a tired sigh. _So is there anyone that you want to see_? She inquires after a moment.

__

Mom, she replies, _tomorrow though_. _I want to see her one last time_, _just in case_.

__

Yeah, Dawn agrees. _It'll be nice to give her a hug_, _talk to her_.

Buffy turns around in the tunnel as she looks for the nearest way out of the sewers. _And I figured I'd stop in and pay Faith a visit tonight_. _Let her know there's somebody out here that cares about her_.

Dawn smiles inside Buffy's skull as she makes her way to one of the service exits. _That'd be nice too_.

Xander checks the clock on Giles' mantle for the tenth time in the last ten minutes. Turning his head straight again he takes back up the pacing he had stopped to the look at Giles' clock. Anya had agreed to meet him here after her and Buffy had talked out whatever Buffy had wanted to talk to her about. It was now quarter after four and still no sign of Anya.

Xander didn't understand that. Neither of them had much in common with the other, aside from the fact they could talk forever about nothing at all. With Anya it was sex, or reminiscing about her glory days as a vengeance demon, or both. With Buffy it was clothes, what creatures she killed the other night, and what guys she found datable. A category he had never fallen in to.

He glances at the sofa as he makes his turn to go back the way he had just come from and once again spots Spike lounging on the broken sofa. The vampire had been there ever since he had arrived, never moving from his spot unless it was to heat up another mug of blood. Which he always brought back with some type of condiment. Chips, or crackers, or anything that gave a little texture to his blood.

The worst, as far as Xander was concerned, was when he first arrived. Spike had been lying on the sofa, much as he was now, his coffee cup full of blood on the floor next to his head and he had been dipping a Hershey chocolate bar into the cup before eating the blood covered section of chocolate. He had almost walked out of the door right then without looking back.

"What are you doing here?" He finally asks becoming flustered by the vampire's presence in Giles' apartment. It was like an omen, or some other portent, that unspeakable horror was about to descend upon them.

Spike looks up from the book Giles was having him use in place of a sleeping pill. "Not that it's any of your sod all business," he pauses for a moment as something seems to dawn on him. He looks back up at Xander, "right. It is none of your business so bugger off," he sneers going back to his book. "Sides Slayer should be back sooner or later. Then we'll be getting out of here. Go out, kill a few things," he says absently having forgotten about Xander entirely as he contemplates his favorite activities of the past couple of days. "Make a bloody night of it."

Xander blinks as he gapes at what Spike had just said. "What makes you think Buffy would want anything to do with you, the vampire she's despised since you first showed up Sunnydale. You're the bane of her existence..."

Spike manages to zone Xander's rant out. A surprisingly easy task considering the volume of his voice and the sporadically wide hand gestures that soon began accompanying whatever he was saying. He was busy remembering the first time he had ever encountered the slayer in a one on one situation.

It was in the alley just outside the bronze. She had just finished staking the vampire he had set up. There had been a brief almost flirtatious moment between the two of them. A few moments only as they took the other's measure. There had been a sense of heat flowing between them, but then she had realized he was a vampire. From that point on the war between the two of them had been on, with only a few truces called on account of apocalypse and sodding wankers who like to shove pieces of high tech electronics into his head.

Aside from those few occasions the two of them hated each other with a fiery passion. They went out of their way to make the other's life as miserable as possible. Which wasn't too hard considering their razor sharp tongues and rapier like wits. Talking peaceably with each other was much like navigating a minefield blindfolded. Only when he didn't spend at least part of his day verbally sparring with her he felt as if something was missing.

"... now your just a harmless..."

"You know," Spike cuts in glad he had missed whatever else Harris had said. "I should've ate you back when Angelus offered me your throat," he growls tossing the book to the floor. Moving to quickly for Xander to see he's suddenly right in front of the young human. "Do you even see the same stuff as everyone else? Out of all you wankers I'm the only one she likes," he points out.

"Oh you were talking about evil Buffy," Xander breathes out sounding slightly surprised. "I thought you were talking about the real Buffy," he says with a wide grin.

Spike smirks at him, "who says I wasn't?"

Xander gapes at the bleached vampire. He couldn't believe his audacity, his arrogance and bravado. Spike was chipped, harmless, he should have been showing more diffidence to those he was forced to depend on for his safety. After all even he could walk up to him now and shove a piece of would through his heart and there wasn't a thing Spike could do to prevent it.

Yet Spike stood in front of him, his disdain for Xander practically dripping off of him. "I'd be careful Spike," Xander says warningly. "Buffy's not always going to be around to protect you..."

Spike snorts at the thought of needed Buffy as guardian. "Like I'd need the chit to keep me safe from the likes of you," his voice oozing with the contempt the feels for the human standing in front of him as he cuts him off.

"Since I'm one of those people you can't hurt," Xander points out smugly.

Spike gives Xander his best evil grin as he replies, "anytime you want to put that theory to the test. My head may hurt for a while afterwards, but you'll be dead a might longer then that," he finishes his voice full of the self confidence he doesn't feel. There however no way in hell that he was going to allow himself to be bullied, intimidated, or pushed around by the likes of Xander Harris, bloody get extraordinaire that he was.

Turning his back on the fuming boy with no fear of retaliation, at least none that was going to occur any time soon, Spike walks into the kitchen. He pulls open the door to Giles' fridge, letting out a relieved breath once he was out of Harris sight. Just like he wasn't going to allow Xander to build his ego up by pushing him around, he wasn't going to let him see that he was getting to him. "Sodding wanker's out of blood all ready," he grumbles loudly as he slams the door closed once he's regained his composure.

Giles had mentioned earlier that he was running low on blood, but there was no need for Harris to know that. Instead he grabs a large glass out of the cupboard and fills it nearly to the top with the best scotch the watcher had available. Re-corking the bottle he lifts his glass slowly in order to savour the aroma of the liquor before taking a slight pull, luxuriating in the feel of the harsh fluid flowing down his throat.

The front door swings open admitting Buffy, followed closely by Willow and Tara. Each one wearing a look of mild concern. Buffy pauses looking at the door as it swings closed, "guess I was right," she murmurs with a shrug.

"Where's Anya?" Xander demands looking straight at Buffy.

"She's not back?" Willow responds her face showing a little more worry then it had a few seconds ago.

Xander shakes his head, "she was suppose to be meeting you," he points a finger at Buffy as he makes his statement, "at the Expresso Pump."

Buffy sighs softly wishing she didn't have to tell Xander this, but since nobody was going to she opens her mouth to speak when the door opens again. "Ah, good you're all here," Giles says pushing the door close. "Marvelous job you did there," he continues giving Xander a slight smile.

"It's about time you're bloody back," Spike gripes loudly. "Did you realize I was out blood? I've been sitting around here starving. Hell even Harris was starting to look tasty."

Giles blinks at Spike's question, "of course," he cuts in to Spike's comments. "I told..."

"Then you had better had picked up something fresh," Spike declares in a huff as he comes into the front room to take the bag Giles is carrying. "Not like that sodding shit you picked up the other day. Bloody stuff was so old..." his mumbles fade to an incoherent level as he carries the bag back into the kitchen.

Giles shakes his head at the vampire's odd behavior. Not that his normal behavior was anywhere close to normal, this just felt a little stranger. As if he was up to something.

"Where is Anya?" Xander again demands.

"We're not exactly sure," Buffy answers slowly.

Xander seems to takes a slight step backwards even though he doesn't move aside from his eyes rapid blinking. "You called up this morning wanting to talk to her," he says after a few seconds.

"It wasn't me," Buffy informs him.

"I talked to you myself," He says following Buffy as she moves to sit at the counter. "Are you trying to tell me I don't know the sound of your voice?"

"It was the other Buffy," Willow tells him before he can say anything else. "She showed up at the Expresso Pump, beat up some guy that was trying to beat up Anya, then dragged her out, and we haven't seen her since."

"I didn't even see her then," Buffy points out. "You know since I wasn't there."

"Chit's finally decided to take you wankers out," Spike says stepping back into view as he takes the graham cracker he was dunking into his blood out. Letting the excess blood drip back down into the mug. Once he's satisfied he brings the cookie to his mouth and bites off the blood drenched object.

Giles shakes his head slightly. It didn't seem to matter what he brought into his house for himself to snack on. Spike would eventually find it, smother it in his blood, and then eat it, effectively making it inedible to the retired librarian. He had done it with the Wheat-A-Bix, vanilla ice cream, and now Graham crackers. He just prayed that Spike hadn't found his stash of Hershey bars.

"God," Xander groans. "Could you be anymore of a pig?"

Spike smirks, "I could always try being more like you," he says dunking his cookie again. "But it would take me too much of my time for me to devote it to being useless bugger like you."

"Hey," Willow pipes up. "Xander's not a bugger, whatever a bugger is," she adds softly looking down trying to remember what a bugger is. Whipping her head back up she also adds, "he's not useless either."

"And maybe, if you keep believing that then someday it just might be true," he says before taking another bite from his cookie.

Buffy looks up at Spike forcing the smile from her lips. She subconsciously looks him over as her eyes come up to meet his. "You can leave anytime you want," she informs coldly.

"What and miss out on Xander's wit?" He responds bitingly as he finishes off the last of the cookie. "I wouldn't dream of it," he says smirking broadly as he looks down at her. He could almost lose himself in her soft, yet fiery flecked eyes.

The door swings open again. Spike forces himself to look up at the sudden sound that pulled Buffy's gaze from his. This time Anya walks in out of the night. She glances around at everyone staring at her, "what?" She asks feeling very self-conscious at the moment. "Do I have something on my face, my hair? It's the clothes isn't it? I knew they made me look fat."

"Their all just surprised to see standing and all," Spike tells her. "They all thought you'd been done in by the Slayer."

"What?" Anya says with a questioning look then she remembers how her and Buffy had left the Expresso Pump. "Oh, that," she continues with a negligent flip of her hand. "She just wanting some information on some demon that had annoyed her. She was thinking about going and paying him a visit and just wanted to know all she could about him."

"And did you by chance happen to tell her?" Giles inquires politely.

Anya nods, "but only after I worked a deal that was extremely beneficial," she answers proudly beaming at Xander.

"You worked out a deal?" Buffy questions suspiciously remembering the last time Anya had done something on her own.

"I very good one as a matter of fact," she replies turning her head to stare at Buffy.

"What might the details of this deal be?" Giles questions his voice equally suspicious as Buffy's had been.

"That she wouldn't hurt Xander," She tells them all with a broad smile.

Giles shakes his head as Buffy blinks. Willow stares dumbly at her best friend's girlfriend while Spike drinks his blood unconcerned by the proceedings. Buffy knew she shouldn't have been surprised by her statement, after all it was Anya, but still. "That's it?" She finally manages to ask.

"That was all that you asked for?" Giles questions hoarsely. "There was nothing else that you could have thought of asking for?"

"It was my information," She responds stiffly. "If she wants something from the rest of you. Then you can make your own deals with her. I got what I wanted."

Giles sighs deeply, he shouldn't have expected anything different from Anya. Only he had hoped. "And just what perchance did you tell her?"

"I got seven contacts inside the apartment," Style informs the two other members of his team as he looks through an advance pair of government issued binoculars. The entire group was lying in the brush, their camouflage doing a remarkable job at keeping them hidden from any stray eye that may pass over them. "Everybody but Seventeen reads as human."

"We know how much that means," Craiger replies remembering the file they had read this afternoon before beginning this assignment. Buffy Anne Summers may look and act like your average collage co-ed but underneath that veneer was something completely inhuman.

Bevens grunts sourly as he observes, "just because they walk, talk, and act like us don't make them us."

"This means our operation is going to take longer then the professor thought," Style remarks. "We're going to have to find out if they're nothing more then sympathizers or if they're like the girl."

"If they separate who do we stay with?" Bevens questions.

"Orders or we stay with the blond, map out her movements and activities," Style answers. "We'll be sure this place gets tapped. From there we'll be able to isolate her circle of friends and find out just how far this threat extends."

Striding down the long hospital corridors, black coat swishing around her legs as it flared out just enough to keep it from scraping along the polished floors. The tiny slayer drew almost every eye as she passed them. A few, turning curious gazes. to watch the young lady, with a murderous glint in her eyes, as she storms pass them.

There was no need to leave more of an impression in the minds of the doctors, nurses, and other people who were likely to see her as she visited her sister slayer. So instead of going there directly she had broken into her old room on campus, gotten a change of clothes, and used the showers there to clean herself up. A few people, that she vaguely remembered from her time living in the dorm, had greeted her as she went about her business but she hadn't paid them the slightest bit of attention.

Inside her skull Umad had been silent for awhile now which was both good and bad. She was surprised at how much she liked talking to the voice she imagined wearing Dawn's face. At the same time she was mildly concerned about the fact that she seemed to be so independent. That she didn't know some of the simplest things about her life, about how angry she was at her one time friends. Why she was angry at them.

She would have figured if she was going to have a split personality it would at least have the decency to know everything about herself. Then again wasn't that one of the reasons people make up little voices. So they can shield themselves from something they'd rather not face.

As she approaches Faith's room she scowls at the oppressive catacomb like feeling of this section of the hospital. She feels anger at herself bubble to the surface. Eight months Faith had been down here and never once did she come to pay her a visit. Never once did she even think about here sister slayer lying in some dank, dark, almost subterranean room.

People had always considered her good and kind and loving and considerate, when in reality she had been nothing more then a spoiled brat who didn't take responsibility for the things she had done. She had been in that alley right along side Faith when Finch had been killed. Did she accept her part of that murder. Of course not. It was easier to foist the entire thing on Faith. She had staked him, it was her fault he was dead. I, Buffy, had nothing to do with it.

Stepping into the room she gasps softly. She had never seen Faith like this, looking so small, so weak and vulnerable. Faith had always been so vibrant, so full of live, in her own slightly dark and morbid kind of way. This was definitely not something that she was going to allow. Not if there was anything that she could do about it.

Walking over to the bed she takes Faith's hand in hers. Closing her eyes she forces her mind and body to relax completely. She doesn't know how long she stays like that, nor does she care. Her only thought at the moment is reaching that deep dream world that Faith and herself used to communicate with each other when they had both been close to death.

There was no sense of shifting or sliding or anything like that. One moment she was in Faith's hospital room the next she was standing in Dawn's bedroom at her house. She instantly wonders how Faith knew about this when even she hadn't known about Dawn's coming. There had been that dream were the First Slayer had tried to kill all her friends. At the beginning Tara had been in this room as well. Had she been talking about Dawn's arrival as well.

"Hey B," Faith whispers into Buffy's ear. Buffy turns around to look at the brunette with sadness in her eyes. "Gotta say I'm liking this look on you. All grim and dark," she continues with approval. "Finally got down off your high horse and rolled around in the muck with the rest of us."

"You knew about Dawn?" Buffy asks in a soft voice.

Faith shrugs as she hops on the bed. Lying on her side she props her head on the palm of her hand. "Little Miss Muffet counting down from seven three o?" She inquires with a frown. "Gotta forgive me B," she mutters as she points a finger to her head, "things aren't exactly five by five up here right now." She smirks sexily at Buffy, "so Dawn, hugh. Kinda like it, gives that promise of a new day feeling. Like maybe today's gonna be better then yesterday," she continues as she rolls over onto her back. "But yeah, Dawn's always real close in here. Sometimes she's so near you can almost hear her. If you listen real close."

Buffy shakes her head as she realizes monks must have been preparing Dawn a long time before they actually sent her to Buffy. Sitting down on the edge of the bed she begins saying, "look I didn't come here to talk about Dawn..."

Faith quickly hops up off the bed cutting Buffy off. "You haven't got a frigging clue why your here," she says with a grin as she pokes a hard finger into her chest, "your all confused here," she takes her finger and shoves it into the side of her head, "just like I'm all messed up here. You gotta make it clear before you can get what you want."

Buffy gives Faith a tight smile. It was confirmation, if of a slightly dubious nature, of what Anya had told her. "That's what I'm here for," she says taking Faith by the hands. She leads her over to the bed, "to help clear this up," she points to the side of Faith's head.

Faith sits down Indian style on the bed, "I don't think you can," she replies in a tiny voice.

"Of course I can," Buffy responds following Faith on to the bed copying her sitting posture. Again she takes the brunette's hands, "this is something Willow taught me."

"Red," Faith smirks a little surprised. "You sure this isn't meant to kill me?" She questions with a slight frown on her lips.

Buffy can't help but smirk as she says, "trust me. Follow what I'm going to teach you and you'll be out of here in no time." After a moment she adds, "I really am sorry for the way I've always treated you."

Faith shrugs her shoulders, "it's in the past B."

Everyone, with the exception of Spike, had congregated by the door Xander had repaired that afternoon as they made ready to depart the watchers apartment. They had spent the late afternoon, early evening discussing what they were going to about the revelations Anya had brought to them. The best plan they had come up with was to have Buffy try to talk to herself in the morning. Anya thought it unlikely that Buffy would attempt confronting Lurky again so soon.

"Thanks for supper," Buffy comments as she grabs hold of the door handle.

"Yes," Anya chimes in. "Thank you for feeding all of us poor unemployed slackers. It was most gracious of you. We'll be back tomorrow night so you can feed us again," she says seriously as she pulls Xander out the door. "We're going to go back to Xander's and not have sex since Xander is still incapable of performing properly because..."

Xander finally manages to clamp a hand over her mouth, "sometimes I just don't know what to do."

"Well for starters you could let the bloody chit finishes," Spike encourages from the couch. "As dull and uninteresting as your sex life is, hearing about you performance problems might still bring a smile to my lips," he finishes with an evil smirk smeared across his face.

Xander scowls at the couch since the evil vampire was nowhere to be seen, but says nothing. Having spent the better part of the night trying to one up Spike, but finding for every comment he made the chipped vampire had a better one just waiting to be used. Sometimes as many as two or three. "Night everyone," he says giving Anya a slight tug to get her going.

"Night Xander," Willow returns cheerfully.

Buffy pulls open the door, "see you tomorrow Xan," she says as he steps past her. "And Anya... Thank you for the information. It was a big help."

Anya smiles at the tiny slayer as Xander nudges her slightly, "now would be a good time to show your gratitude."

"Shouldn't she be the one to showing her gratitude?" Anya questions with a slight frown. "After all I am the one the provided her with valuable intel tonight. I think I should be recompensed accordingly for my time, effort, and the risk involved in me getting that information. After all I was almost severely tortured today," she points out as Xander begins to pull her away.

"Yes, but you told us because were your friends and you were concerned about our safety," he says as the two of them walk down the stone walkway.

"Next time I'm not saying anything until there's some type of mutually beneficial agreement," Anya continues as her voice fades away into the distance.

Willow shakes her head as she says, "I don't think I'm ever going to understand that girl."

"There's not much to understand," Buffy says as she turns to leave. "Come on. I'll walk you guys back to the campus before I head out for my patrol," she offers the two witches as she holds the door open. Looking back at Giles she tells him, "I'll be here bright and early tomorrow so I can have a talk with myself."

"Very well then," Giles replies with a slight nod. "If you should run across anything unusual..."

"You'll be the first person that I think of," Buffy assures him. Without being too obvious she shoots a circumspect glance at the couch that Spike was lying on. She couldn't see the vampire but she knew he was there. Tonight had just added more confusion to her already over worked brain.

Except for a few occasions, were they insulted each other with as much venom as ever, they had actually gotten along with each other. Those few tense instances, of bitter insults and biting retorts, had felt faked, or forced as if they had been doing it simply because it was expected of them.

"Yes well, very good then," Giles voice breaks into her concentration.

"Goodnight Giles," Willow says.

"G-Goodnight Mr. Giles," Tara echoes a bit more politely.

Giles again nods his head again as the three girls step out into the darkness. He closes the door slowly as he watches them fade into the night, a frown creeping across his face. Buffy wasn't the only one to notice how her and Spike's interaction had changed over the pass couple of days.

Tonight the two of them had nearly been flirting with each other the entire evening. True they had disguised it well enough and if he hadn't been looking for it he probably never would have seen it. But he had been and he did. Now the question was what should he do about it. Nothing and run the risk of having Buffy turn into the creature that her future self was, or try to put a halt to it and face the same outcome. He suddenly found the prospect of trying to navigate the future to be a very trying experience.

They stood outside Tara's hall in a circle of bright light provided by the security lamps that give a semblance of safety in the darkness of the night. Hands clasp they simply stare into each other's eyes. Time seems to stretch into immeasurable units for the two as they lose themselves in their feelings for the other.

"I'd ask you up..." Tara begins without her stutter.

"And I'd probably say yes," Willow cuts in feeling the heat rise to her cheeks. She smiles shyly as Tara drops her head slightly letting her hair hide her face once again, but not before Willow sees the blonde's face color as well. Taking one of her hands she lifts Tara's chin so she's looking the taller girl back in her eyes. "You don't ever have to hide from me," She says softly. "There's nothing you can ever do that I wouldn't want to see all of you. That sparkle in your eyes, that little curve to your lips."

"Really?" Tara questions shyly as she meets Willow's intense gaze.

"Really," Willow affirms. "I want to know you. Everything about you," she says a slight hook forming in her own lips as she hears the innuendo in her words. "I want dates, and candlelit dinners, and darkened movies, and late night rendezvous, and I want everything to be perfect, and I especially want our first time to be special, magical. Which is why I'm not going to go up," this time she looks to the ground as she finishes with a timid, "because if I did I want to make love to right then and there and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that yet."

Tara reaches out and brushes the tears from Willow's cheek with a gentle stroke of her thumb. Willow leans into the contact relishing the feel of Tara's silken skin along hers. "Then we'll wait," Tara whispers feeling confident for the first time in her life. "And we'll go on dates, and have lots of candlelit dinners, and darkened movie theaters, and late night rendezvous, and we'll wait, and when your ready you'll let me know," she says softly. Leaning forward slowly giving Willow all the time in the world to back away from her as she brings her lips to Willow's and places a feather light kiss on her velvety smooth lips.

________________________________________________________________________

You Don't Know Me At All - Don Henley

I woke up this morning with an attitude  
looked at the headline,  
put me in a real bad mood  
sitting here in limbo   
trying to stay sane  
between the end of the summer  
and the coming of the blessed rains  
and I feel dirty, all the way down  
I feel dirty, baby, like this pretty town  
I gave you everything on a silver tray   
could have been a fool for ever,  
but I'm not made that way  
  
and after all these years,   
I figure it's time to say goodbye  
I'm doing you a favor,  
I will not help you live a lie  
and believe me  
if you think I'm gonna catch you when you fall  
you don't know me,   
you don't know me at all  
  
I closed up the curtains  
learned to confess  
baby, I knew better  
but you were such a pretty mess  
you took my breath away  
and now I want it back  
Ah, you should've killed me,  
you always looked so good in black  
And after all these twisted roads  
that we've been down together  
I think it's time to say goodbye  
and believe me  
if you think i'm gonna get down and   
crawl  
you don't know me,  
you don' t know me at all  
  
ohh, ohh  
(really catchy guitar part!)  
  
and after all these years,  
I figure it's time to say goodbye  
I'm doing us a favor baby  
you know i cannot live a lie  
and when you need me  
and you think I'm gonna   
be there when you call  
you don't know me  
you don't know me at all  
you don't know me at all  
Not at all  
You don't know me at all  
You don't know me at all...


	7. Chap 6: The Fire Still Burns

__

Chapter Six: The Fire Still Burns 

The night air was still cool as she makes her way towards Giles' apartment. She wasn't sure if her time with Faith was going to pay off in the long run, but at least she felt better doing something beneficial for someone and not just killing whatever she comes across. Faith deserves a chance at a real life, or at least as close to a real life as she can have being a slayer.

She had given Willow a second chance after she had killed Warren. There had been no questions asked, no reparations demanded from her best friend that had tried to destroy the entire world. True, Willow had been in the middle of a grief stricken rage because of the lost of her lover.

Faith on the other had coolly gone over to the enemy. She wishes Faith would have talked to her during their brief re-association just before the apocalypse, but like always the two of them just couldn't be around each other without the sparks flying. If it wasn't one thing, Faith deciding to pick a fight with Spike her first night back in town, it was something else, like Faith deciding to screw Principal Wood on her bed.

She could feel her body reacting to Spike's presence as she nears Giles' apartment, that electric like spark that tingles it way down her spine. Briefly she considers turning around and heading somewhere else, but she doesn't have anywhere else to go right now.

Pushing the door open easily she marvels slightly that the door had been repaired already. She hadn't thought Xander would have gotten to it for a couple of more days. With a quick glance towards the counter she spots both Spike and Giles ther hovering over what looks like a chess board. She vaguely remembers something that might have been a chess board on one of Giles' book filled shelves on her many visits here during her collage years.

"Good evening Buffy," Giles calls out as she crosses the room without another glance at the two of them.

Spike cranks his head around as she reaches the stairs. He would have said something but he instinctively knew she wasn't going to say anything to him. That while on some deep, almost primal level she might want him more then anything else. On another level she wants nothing to do with him what-so-ever.

He still watches her as she silently climbs the stairs. It was something that her younger self didn't do. The Buffy that belongs to this time made noise when she moves, she still thought and acts human where as future Buffy made no such pretense. She was the slayer, a predator, a killer and she moves with the silent deadly grace of what she is. When she struck there was no warning. It was a quick death that you never saw coming.

"Well," Giles says returning his attention back to the chess board. He had been slightly surprised when Spike had shown an interest in the game. He was even more surprised that he had yet to win one of their matches since the vampire plays with such a reckless abandon. "I suppose that could have gone better," he adds looking the board over carefully. He had the feeling that there was something different about the board since he had taken his eyes off it just a few seconds ago.

Spike turns back around, "could've gone worse as well," the blonde vampire replies with a smirk. He picks up his coffee mug full of blood asking, "so Rupert. You move or are you ready to admit that I've bloody whipped you again."

Giles stares up indignantly, "you haven't whipped me yet."

"Don't you mean you haven't won yet?" Spike mocks the ex-watcher.

"There is a fundamental difference between losing and getting whipped," he explains.

Spike shrugs as he murmurs indifferently, "so long as you got the cash to cover the wager."

It disturbs him slightly that Spike had actually suggested placing a bet on the game, but he had been desperate for a good game that he had agreed to the small wager. Now three games later he was he has yet to win. He was beginning to wonder if it was a good idea. So far seventy-five dollars wasn't that large of a sum but it was soon going to be a hundred and he really couldn't afford much more then that. At least not in a single night.

Buffy closes the door behind her. It was incredible. She had spent the last few hours in a meditative trance yet she felt empty. Completely drained. She couldn't ever remember feeling so wiped out before, not even when Giles stripped her of her powers, or when her friends had kicked her out of her own house. This was an utterly new low for her.

Seeing the duffel bag full of clothes on the floor she briefly contemplates changing before collapsing on Giles' bed, but decides against it. She was far too tired to drag off one set of clothes just to pull on another pair. That didn't mean however that she was planning on sleeping in the dirty clothes she was wearing right now.

Slipping Spike's coat off her shoulders she tosses it onto the bed as she kicks off her shoes off. Grabbing the hem of her blood red blouse she lifts it up over her head before undoing the clasp of her jeans and sliding them as well her plain white cotton panties over hips and down her legs.

Free of any clothes she picks Spike's duster up from off the bed and wraps the cool leather around herself as she topples daintily onto Giles' bed. Her mind fills with images of her and Spike's last night together. Him pulling her back from the edge of the abyss she had been teetering on. She could feel his strong arms engulfing her, steadying her, his cool lips kissing her, setting her body ablaze with her need for him. She could feel him filling her completely like no one ever has before.

Dawn wakes up with a soft gasp as she opens her new eyes. Her skin felt like it was burning up, her heart was beating away in her chest, and her lungs had been straining for oxygen. Going by the last few minutes of Buffy's dream she had been privileged enough to experience she was hardly surprised at the sensations coursing through her sister's body. She had never imagined her sister as the type of person to have erotic dreams, but the last couple of nights had been rather eye opening for the young girl.

She wonders what Buffy had been up to while she had been... Sleeping, she'd have to call it. Before reaching the dorm she had felt worn out. Which she didn't find all that surprising once she took into consideration the fact it had been nearly two days since the last time had any sleep. So she closed herself off from Buffy, sort of like locking herself in her own room.

Only with Buffy going to sleep she suddenly found herself in charge of the entire house. Everything except for a little spot she thought of as Buffy's room. She wonders if this was some weird side effect to them sharing the same body. That one of them was going to be awake at all times.

Shifting slightly Dawn realizes Buffy had gone to sleep nude, except for Spike's duster wraping her up. It was an extremely strange sensation. She had never slept in the nude before and she was use to her body. It had taken her sixteen, three, years to get use to her body, but she was. What she wasn't use to was Buffy's body and she definitely wasn't use to waking up without any clothes on in Buffy's body.

That being the main reason she decides on a course of action. Get dress, take a shower- because she smells really bad- get something to eat- because once again Buffy decided to run herself around all day eating nothing.

Dawn felt a little perturb by that. She figures if it was somebody's job to protect the world they would at least have the common sense to maintain a well balanced, nutritious eating plan that didn't include long periods of starvation. It was something all superheroes did. At least the ones with major motion pictures under their belts anyway.

Slipping out from underneath the coat she wavers slightly as she feels a wave of dizziness sweep through her. She wonders absently if Buffy had gone out and picked a fight with a hell god while she was sleeping.

Everything stops as she realizes she was going to come face to face with Glory within half a year at most. That people were going to be expecting her to fight a hell god bent on destroying the world, well getting back home. That the world was going to be destroyed in the process wasn't even a blip on Glory's radar

Could she? Would she be able to stand up to Glory? Confront her? Fight her?

What was she going to do when she looks at herself through Buffy's eyes. Or would she? Would the monks even make her this time with her already existing. Would they be able to sense her. Did she exist?

Or was she like Buffy considers her? A split personality that she created to cling to her pass.

"No," she growls out hoarsely.

Lurky did this to her, somehow. Somehow manipulating Buffy's desires to shove her inside her sister's head. Anya had said the demon was powerful, but was he powerful enough to do something like this.

She didn't know but in a few days she was going to find out. That was something she knew with certainty.

Giles looks up as a somewhat somber Buffy bounces down the stairs whistling an unfamiliar tune, which didn't surprise him that much since almost all of the music she listens to was unfamiliar to him. The tiny blonde had the heavy black duster clutched in one hand and the duffel bag that Buffy had brought over in the other.

Dawn sees Spike quickly move the white rook over one place just before turning around as well. "Well now if it isn't miss sunshine herself," Spike murmurs his greeting.

"Hey guys," Dawn says just as she reaches the foot of the stairs.

"You seem in a better mood," Giles remarks as she tosses the duster over the back of his still broken sofa.

She gives a little shrug and dips her head to one side slightly as she walks towards them. "Guess what they say is true. A little sleep can make anyone seem like a whole new person," the tiny blonde finishes as she comes to stand next to Spike as she looks the board over. "That wasn't a very good move," she informs the bleach blonde vampire. "Giles will have you in check in three moves, check mate two moves after that."

"What move?" Giles inquires asks he glances back down at the board. Once again something was out of place but he couldn't for the life of him see what it was.

Dawn picks up the rook and shows Giles while saying, "this move."

Spike gives Giles a light smirk as the librarian scowls at him for a moment. "Yes, well. Nobody ever has claimed to have figureed out why Spike behaves the way he does."

"That's simple," Dawn says with a light grin. "Spike either does what he wants to, or what he has to. If its all right with you I'm going to go take a shower?"

"By all means," Giles says politely.

"Thanks," she says walking towards the bathroom.

Giles watches the young girl as she disappears around the corner and into the bathroom. "Well that just about confirms it," he comments as he turns back around to face the vampire. "That definitely is not Buffy."

"Did you catch how she was taunting us with it," Spike agrees. "Guess what they say is true," he starts off in a bad female voice. "Bollix," he spits out.

"Well actually I missed that one," Giles replies as he takes off his glasses and begins wiping them down.

Spike's a little confused by that. "How'd you figure it out then?"

Giles slips his glasses back on his head, "simple really. Buffy doesn't know the first thing about chess. She couldn't tell you the difference between a pawn and a knight, or as she would call it a horsy, let alone see a complex strategy like this," he adds with a pointed glare at Spike. "Cheating," he accuses.

"No," Spike responds indignantly. "Just making the game a bit more interesting is all. Wanted to see if you could catch me," he smirks lightly as he pulls out a cigarette and lights it. "If it wasn't for the bint coming down you never would've and you know it."

Giles glowers at the vampire as he asks, "and were you planning on giving me back my money."

Spike gasps at the older looking man as he chokes on a lungful of smoke, "I won that fair and square."

"You cheated," Giles counters.

"But you didn't know that," he responds with a grin. "Tell you what one game winner takes all. Can't get any fairer then that, now can it?"

The ex-librarian scowls at him as he asks, "and are you going to be cheating?"

"Only if you catch me," Spike tells him with an exceedingly evil grin parting his lips slightly.

Nobody even seems to notice her as she walks into the kitchen after finishing her shower. Both men were bent over the chess board studying it closely. Dawn ignores them for the moment as she gets herself a soda out of the refrigerator. As she turns back around she sees the move Giles is about to make and says, "I wouldn't. Spike would have your queen in two moves," she informs the watcher.

When she had been in junior high she had belonged to the chess club for a little more then a week. She had a real talent for the game but normally she found it extremely boring. For some reason though looking at the chess board through Buffy's eye she could see the game for what it was.

Strategy, playing out a war. Your intelligence, cunning, and skill at deceiving your adversary. She didn't know if it was part of being a slayer but she suddenly found the idea of proving herself better then somebody, at anything, very exciting. "Here," she says moving the bishop back to where it had come from, quickly scanning the board she slide her rook all the way down in front of Spike's knight, but doesn't take the piece. "There you go," she adds popping open the can of soda.

Spike stares at the board in wonder as Giles mutters, "I did have a strategy."

Dawn smirks mischievously as she says, "one that was going to be having Spike winning in a matter of a few more moves." She places her elbows on the table as she watches Spike watch the board. Suddenly Spike makes his move, then Dawn makes hers, which Spike counters rapidly. Dawn counters his counter almost as quickly and Giles stands back in awe as the two play the game at a speed his eyes have a hard time following. A few moments later Dawn calls out, "check."

"Bloody hell," Spike mutters as he makes his move.

Dawn frowns as she gives the board a quick once over again before making her move. Then again its the fast pace of an instant before. "Check," Spike informs her.

Dawn smiles taking the piece and declaring, "Checkmate," with a joyful little smile over her lips. "Whoop, there it is," she says as she begins doing a little victory dance circling her hands one way and her hips the other as she turns in a slow circle. The entire time saying, "whoop. There it is."

Giles stares at his slayer from the future wondering what kind of juvenile adolescent entity has managed to gain control of her.

Spike couldn't care less about the blondes little victory antics. His only concern was the board he was staring down at, constantly turning around as he continues to mumble, "bollix. Bloody buggering balls." He looks up at her beaming face saying, "that just ain't right."

Dawn stops her mini celebration to grin at Spike. "What, don't like the fact you lost to a girl?" She teasingly inquires of him.

"No. I don't like the fact I lost to you," he informs her hotly. Then the next instant he asks, "so you want to go kill us some demons or what?"

Dawn, if possibly, brightens even more at the invitation then she did at her victory. "Sure. Anyplace in particular you want to do a sweep of?"

"Figure we could just do one of those walk about things those pygmy blokes do down in Australia," Spike tells her as he puts on his duster.

"You mean the Aborigines?" Dawn questions as she walks over to the couch to pick up her own matching duster.

Spike shrugs, "what's the difference between on indigence people and another? They all look like food to me."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Giles inquires as the two of them head to the door.

Spike thinks for a moment before saying, "nothing comes to mind."

"You lost," Giles says reminding him of the wager.

"But you didn't beat me," Spike replies as he jerks his head towards Dawn. "Like always it took a slayer to do what you humans can't."

"Fine," Giles responds, "then give Buffy the money. Since she beat you she more then deserves it. Besides it would be nice if she could actually pay for her meals."

Dawn's cheeks go beat red as she realizes Spike must have told everyone about what she did last night. The vampire shrugs pulling out a wad of cash and passing it over to the blonde standing next to him. Dawn takes the money almost in a daze. Looking back up at her sister's watcher she says, "I promise Giles. I'll pay you..."

"Nonsense," Giles cuts her off. "You earned it beating Spike, besides I would've paid twice as much to see that smug look wiped off his face. Go on, get out of here, and be sure to have a good time."

Neither Dawn or Spike need to be told a second time as they quickly exit Giles' flat. Once their gone Giles stops as he begins picking up the chess board. He closes his eyes and drops his head slightly unable to believe he just encouraged Buffy to have a good time with Spike. "I must be losing my bloody mind," he mutters softly as he continues on with his chores.

"How the hell did we lose her?" Craiger questions hotly. They had been trailing after the Summers girl, whatever kind of creature she was, when she seemingly vanished without a trace over an hour ago. She had simply been wondering around the graveyards doing nothing aside from looking bored to tears. It almost looked as if she had been planning on meeting up with someone, but no one had shown.

"Keep it silent unless you have a contact," Style orders through the head set. "We know most of these HST's have hearing superior to humans. We have to assume the same holds true for her."

"I got her," Bevens tells them quietly. "It looks like she went back to change," he says. "Plus she's got Hostile Seventeen with her."

"Damn," Style growls. He had been hoping to take her tonight, but the two of them together were too much. Even if they did manage to take one down the other would know they were under attack and be able to respond to the threat.

For seventeen that meant getting reinforcements. From the reports he read on the Summers girl that probably meant a painful death for him and his men. When they took her down she had to be alone, isolated. Nobody could know she had been taken until well after the fact. "Observe. Do not engage," he orders. "And this time lets not lose her," he suggest sarcastically.

"I'm so sorry," Dawn apologizes for what felt like the millionth time to the young girl as her and Spike make their way to the Bronze. Spike had a craving for an order of the spicy buffalo wings and a flowering onion. "I was just so busy with that one Dreeee`lipsh that I didn't even see the second one until it was already flying through the air."

Spike smirks at the tiny blonde that was just about the complete oppisite of the person she was pretending to be. "Slayings a contact sport slayer. If you're going to play the game gotta be willing to pay the price. Figured after four years of killing all us nasties you'd of learnt that by now."

"Well yeah, but nobody's ever gotten hurt while they've been patrolling with me," Dawn responds with a lot of fake confidence.

"You mean to tell me no little monsters ever sunk his teeth into you tender flesh?" Spike inquires suggestively which Dawn doesn't understand so doesn't react in the way he thinks she would have.

Instead she simply replies saying, "not a one."

Spike pulls open the door filing away the fact that whoever was wearing Buffy's body had surprising gaps in what she knew and what she didn't. "Then what you call that," Spike asks tracing Angel's bite along her other wise flawless skin.

Spike's touch sends an almost electric jolt through Dawn. For a moment she forgets about everything else as something deep inside of her stirs. She swallows hard as she tries to reassert herself. "That was just Angel," she says breathlessly. "He would've died otherwise."

Spike shakes his head, "your life for his," he scoffs. "Isn't even close to being a fair exchange if you ask me."

Dawn quickly ducks through the door to keep Spike from seeing her coloring at his remark. She knew he was referring to her sister, but still the tone, the words themself had made her knees weaken dramatically.

Spike follows after her with a slightly confused smirk creasing his face. A direct sexual innuendo does nothing to get her knickers in a twist but pay her a simple complement and she runs away as fast as she can. Figuring out what makes this Slayer tick was going to be a job and a half.

Finding the girl inside the semi crowded club wasn't a problem for him. His nose lead him straight to her. Even without it he still thought he could find her wherever she went. Though with two of them running around it was a little easier. He just wasn't sure if he would find the one he was looking for.

Dawn pulls out the wad of money Spike had pushed into her hands back at Giles apartment. "Here," she says handing it to him. "Get whatever you want, just make sure to get lots of it," she tells him.

Spike looks at her skeptically. "Since when did you start trusting me with the culinary decisions?"

Dawn shrugs as she replies, "don't know. Were you planning on feeding baby entrails and pig brains?"

Spike scrunches his face in disgust. "Bloody hell slayer. Watch what your saying. You could bloody ruin a blokes appetite with talk like that."

She quirks her eyebrow at him as she remarks, "this coming from the man who dips Hershey kisses into his blood."

"That's different," he objects sternly.

"Why just because it's you doing the grossing instead of be grossed?"

"Well. Yeah," the blonde vampire answers with a slight shrug.

"Would you just go get the food," she says. "I'm hungry enough I think I could eat the entrails and brains." She manages to hold off the laughter at his face until after he had left but by then it was more then she could do to hold it in.

By the time he gets back she was sitting at the table with the straightest face plastered on that he had ever seen. "So, you have yourself a good old belly laugh at Spike's expense did you?" Dawn nods as Spike sits down. "Its all right. Even without vampire hearing a would of heard you clear across the room, probably the bleeding twon as well," he tells her.

Dawn lets her serious face fall. A broad, open grin replacing it in a heartbeat. With the clarity of a struck bell Spike realizes that's what so different between Buffy, either one, and this entity in her body right now. It was her openness. The fact that she didn't seem to hide anything from anyone. He felt rather stupid that it had taken him this long to realize it.

"The food will be here in a minute," he tells her. Wanting to get her talking he asks the first thing that comes to his mind, "so what's the future like?"

Whatever openness had been there vanishes like water in the Sahara. "Bad," was all she says as she looks beyond him. "Everyone I cared about died..."

"Not Joyce," Spike cuts her off. Out of all the humans he had meant over more then a century she was one of the toughest he had ever come upon. He knew that from the first moment he saw her just after she hit him over the head with an ax. In a lot of ways she reminds him of his own mother. There were a lot of differences between the two woman, but they were similar enough in the fact that they both love their children beyond anything.

"She was the first," Dawn answers quietly.

Spike's eyes glow for a moment as he says, "well your not going to let it happen this time."

"There's not really anything I can do. She had a tumor. In her brain," Dawn tells him without raising her voice. "The doctors got it, but something else went wrong. No one knew it at the time but she developed an aneurysm and one day it just... Burst I guess. Its what the doctors said," she adds with a shrug. "Bu... I found her on the sofa one day after fighting some robot."

"That's bollix. Whatever bloody moron told you that didn't have the brain power to light a candle," Spike spits out viciously. "There's plenty that can be done. I still have plenty of contacts, granted must of them don't like working on humans, but I'm fairly sure with you and me twisting their respective arms, horns, tentacles... Whichever, we'll have your mum in tip top shape for the next hundred years."

Dawn looks over at Spike. There was an extremely determine set to the vampire's jaw that she remembers seeing on any number of occasions. Especially the months that Buffy had been dead and he had taken the task of raising her into his hands. "Thanks, but I really don't know how mom would feel about being alive for another hundred years."

"You know what I mean slayer," he growls threateningly.

She gives a slight up and down jerk to her head, "yeah. And well, thanks."

"Well what the bloody hell are we waiting for?" He demands looking crossly at her.

She shakes her head forgetting just how impatient Spike could be. "It's okay Spike," she tells him. "They don't even find the tumor for almost a year," she explains.

Spike scowls slightly. He didn't like knowing something and not being able to do something about it. Preferably right then and there.

The food and drinks shows up then preventing him from leaving. He smirks lightly as the slayer sniffs her drink warily. "So exactly what did you get me?"

"Thought it didn't matter, that you were hungry enough to eat baby entrails and pigs brains?" He mocks.

"That's food, this is my drink we're talking about," she replies.

Spike shakes his head at her, "don't worry your pretty little head slayer. It's simply an ice tea."

Dawn looks at him skeptically as she says, "it doesn't smell like ice tea to me."

"Its how they make them in Long Island," he responds.

Not trusting the master vampire completely she takes a small sip of the ice tea. It had a slightly bitter flavor but it wasn't entirely bad. Given a little time she might even get use to it. Putting the glass down she turns to what she was really looking forward to.

Spike watches with amazement as the slayer falls to the food with a ravenous appetite he hadn't seen since he watched her eat yesterday. She was practically inhaling the flesh right off the bone as she devours everything in her wake. He was almost afraid to put his hands anywhere near the food for fear the slayer would mistake his fingers for one of the chicken wings. He wasn't about to let her get all the food so using his own supernatural speed he darts his hand in and out of the platter of spicy wings grabbing up several wings at a time.

The blonde vampire was grateful he had decided to triple the order. It only took the two of them several minutes to clean off the platter leaving nothing but gnawed on bones sitting on top of it.

Dawn finishes off her drink in one long swallow. Wiping her hands and face clean of any evidence of what she had just eaten she feels a warm flush spread throughout her body. An indescribable sense of confidence seems to suffuse her entire being.

"Come on," she says grabbing Spike by the hand and pulling him towards the dance floor.

Spike unable to resist her death like grip is forced to follow along behind. "Now listen here slayer," he begins to complain.

"Oh hush up Spike," Dawn says with a little giggle. "It's not like anyone here's gonna make fun of you if you can't dance good... Beside if they do just tell me and I'll beat them up for you," she adds unable to help herself.

"Just what I need. I sodding, bloody protector," Spike mumbles to himself.

Dawn reaches a spot on the dance floor that she likes. Instinctively she allows the music to wash over her as she begins to move her sister's body to the hypnotic beat. 

Spike can't help but to feel himself pulled along in the wake of the slayer's child like, care free attitude. Soon he finds himself moving as well. He doesn't move to the music though.

His body attune with the woman standing before him, his movements in sync with her gyrating body. His hands gliding over her soft flesh, steel cable like muscles moving just below the surface of her flesh, hidden by the soft feminine body.

He knew they were there though. He had felt them before. When they clashed in the past she had brought those well honed muscles to bear on him.

Her body begins to take on a soft shine as a light bead of sweat glistens her soft skin. Her scent fills his nostrils as they begin to move closer. Drawn towards each other as their bodies begin acting on impulses at the core of their beings.

Dawn feels a soft energy tingle through her body as Spike's hands glide over her skin. Like a tiny electrical current that sets every nerve in her body racing with a cold blazing heat. Scorching her and freezing her all at the same time.

Unconsciously moving closer still she presses her lithe body into his. Her body reacting instinctively to Spike's closeness, a desire to claim what it believes belongs to her. She runs her short nails over his sensitive flesh causing Spike to groan softly as he grinds into her. His pelvis sliding along hers.

Dawn gasps softly at the sensations running through her body. She wants more. Needs to feel more.

Grabbing hold of the back of Spike's head with one hand she crushes his mouth to her lips. Her tongue darts out demanding entry into his mouth which opens automatically for her as his tongue rushes out to duel with hers for dominance. With a taste like an alluring elixir of tobacco, alcohol, and blood. It was a combination she was becoming use to tasting living in her sister's body. While one hand pulls, almost painfully at his hair, her other hand continues to punish his upper body as her nails dig soft furrows in his flesh.

Spike's hands where busy sliding over her cloth covered skin. His hand gently cupping the soft swell of pert breast, his thumb grazing over her hardening nipple causing the young girl to gasp into his mouth.

Dawn feels Spike's thumb press of her nipple and suddenly everything comes crashing back. Her head clears with the suddenness of a lightening strike. She pulls away shoving Spike back slightly as she quickly tries to smooth her rumpled clothes. "I'm sorry. I..."

A soft clapping starts from someone in the crowd that had been watching the display the two of them had been putting on. It quickly rises to an ovation complete with whisteling and catcalls. With a start she looks around having completely forgotten about them being in the middle of a crowded dance floor. Her face flaming as she takes in the several dozen smiling, grinning, leering faces of the patrons.

The world feels like its spinning around her. Shoving her way through the crowd, tossing several people out of her way. She rushes out the door bursting into the cool night air. Once out doors she breaks into a sprint heading for the only place of safety she has at the moment. Giles apartment.

Spike stares at the slayer's retreating back for several slow moments. A slow burn quickly rising to the forefront. "Sodding blighters," he growls at the humans stupidly standing around him. Some of them still clapping or congratulating him.

There was something oddly familiar about the entire scene that triggers his anger, it was like re-watching a piece of his past. He had shown them exactly what happens to people who cause him pain, and while he might not be able to shove railroads spikes through their heads there was still plenty that he could do to get his point across.

"Can't hurt a bloody fucking human," he murmurs walking towards the balcony's support beams. "We'll see about that," he adds shifting to his game face.

Putting everything he has into one solid kick the beam crumples under the force of his blow. The upper level teeters with one of its supports taken out. Before anyone can react to the first blow he takes out the second one even as he dives out of the way of the falling balcony.

Screams fill the club for a brief instant as everyone realizes just how much danger their in. Most people quickly flee into the night. A few lie injured, bleeding, possibly dying. Spike really couldn't care less. It was nowhere near what he really wants to do to them, but right now it was all he was capable of doing.

Happiness seems to blanket the dorm room as Willow practically glides around as if her feet float several inches off the ground. A small smile tugs at the corner of her lips as she moves about getting ready for her day. Her effort to keep the jubilant grin from forming on her face are futile, at best, as her mind slips back to images of; Tara as the two of them walk down the road sun glittering in her blonde tresses, Tara a soft smile playing on her luscious lips as a light, musical laughter floats from her mouth to hang on the air, Tara's face shining brightly as she leans forward to capture her lips for the very first time.

A mischievous gleam lights the tiny slayer's eyes as she watches Willow bounce all over the room while trying to suppress the smile that constantly slips over her face. Buffy thinks her best friend might not want her to see how ecstaticly elated she is all because of her gloomy, decidedly not happy status, and she has had about enough of it. "So?" Buffy's demanding inquiry breaks Willow from her revere of Tara's finer quality which was all of the blonde witch.

Willow turns toward Buffy hardly able to hide the silly looking grin, or the laughter shinning in her face. "So," Willow parrots innocently.

"Come on," Buffy pleadingly begs. "You got yourself a girlfriend now," she points out the obvious. Her face falls slightly as she asks, "you do have a girlfriend now?"

Willow reddens slightly as she nods replying in the affirmative saying, "yeah."

"Details," Buffy encourages, "what's she like, well I kind of know what she's like... But what does she make you feel like? Butterflies, loop de loops? Butterflies and loop de loops. Have you kiss... Oh my god. You've kissed her," she gushes rapidly as Willow's blush brightens dramatically. "Dish girl," she pleads again. Her face becoming serious as she adds, "you know if I had a girlfriend I'd be telling you all about it," in a stern voice.

Willow expression turns serious as she questions Buffy asking, "you're not freaked about me being attracted to girls?"

Buffy shrugs slightly as she says lightly, "as long as you promise to let me know if I ever start looking like Barbara Bush I promise not to be freak." She banters causing Willow to smile. "Seriously though, a little at first, but there was that thing last year with your evil vamp twin and you saying you thought she was kind of gay, so its not like it comes totally out of the blue or anything." She hops up off her bed as she proclaims, "beside you're still my Wills," pulling her into a tight hug. "Nothing's ever going to change that."

As Buffy steps back Willow gives her hard look. "Wait a minute," she says a little anger etching her voice at of Buffy's explanation. "Because I said she was kinda of gay you automatically assumed I was as well?"

Buffy shakes her head saying, "no. Angel told me later that becoming a vampire frees a person of their inhibitions."

"All that means is every person who gets turned becomes bisexual," she points out heatedly.

The tiny slayer sighs slightly. The last thing she had wants to do is argue with Willow. She wants to enjoy the redhead's happiness, live vicariously through her so to speak, not ruin it. "I'm just going to say one more thing on the subject then can we just get back to the whole sharing the joy?"

Willow shrugs slightly with a little dip of her head saying, "only if I get a rebuttal statement."

"But then I'd have to rebut your buttal, then we'd just be butting our butts and not being able to sit down for at least a week and a half," Buffy finishes with a confusing expression creasing her face as she tries to figure out exactly what she said.

Willow's expression was equally unreadable as she stares at her friend. She sits down on her bed as she gives into Buffy saying, "go ahead."

"They'll only go bi if their already harboring same sex tendencies. Becoming a vamp doesn't make them that way it just releases their inhibitions. If they're completely straight as a human then they'll be straight as vamps," she explains.

"How would Angel know..." The sudden dip of Buffy's shoulders as she finds something very interesting in the floor tells Willow all she needs to know. "Oh my," she gasps. "No," she adds almost incredulously.

"You can't tell anyone," Buffy says quickly. "Angel made me promise not to..."

"But you just told me," Willow points out.

She shakes her head saying, "you guessed. Major difference there," Buffy finishes triumphantly. She spins the chair around so its back is facing Willow she then sits down straddling it with a dreamy little smile playing at the corner of her lips. "Now about Tara. How good of a kisser is she, did your toes curl up? Did you get that tight little knot right..."

"Buffy!" Willow gasps going crimson.

"Not that knot," Buffy says gaining a little color herself.

Willow stands back up, a pleased smile sliding over her lips. "We decided to take things slow. Lots of dates."

Buffy looks slightly disappointed. "That can't be it," she prods. "you're missing all the gushy, smoochy moments."

Willow didn't think her skin could get much redder the she was so she decides to turn the tables on Buffy by playfully inquiring, "what about you and Riley? I thought you mentioned something about butterflies there."

"Only the kind that want to migrate to Burma," Buffy answers.

Willow still couldn't understand Buffy's sudden shift in attitudes where professor Welsh's TA was concerned. A couple of days ago all she could talk about was Riley Finn. It had gotten to the point were it was seriously reminding her about when Buffy was hanging out with Faith all the time last year, just before the brunette went evil. Almost every word that had been coming out of Buffy's mouth at the time had been Faith this and Faith that. In fact the way Buffy went on about Riley was nowhere near as intense, or consent as how she had gone on about Faith.

It was almost like a light going off in her head as the pieces fall into place.

It didn't make it true or anything. It could have just been that the two slayers had a lot in common at the time, with the whole saving the world and they just clicked. Just because Buffy was always talking about the brunette didn't mean she had a crush on her or anything like it.

"What? Why?" She asks suddenly.

"I caught him looking at me," Buffy answers.

Willow was extremely grateful Buffy couldn't read her mind right now or else she would know that wasn't what she was asking about. Quickly deciding to let it go since it was probably nothing like what she was contemplating she sputters asking. "And, I thought that would be of the good?"

Buffy shakes her head as she gets up from her seat. She paces slightly as she chews on her bottom lip. "Not like this," she starts as she comes to a stop. "It was like I was a new specimen, or maybe a piece of meat, but the minute he noticed me watching him watching me his entire attitude changed. Suddenly he was good old Riley Finn from Arkansas, or someplace like that, again."

"You sure you're not reading to much into it... I mean a lot of guys look at you like they'd like to eat you," Willow says as a soft not knock sounds at their door.

Buffy moves to answer it already knowing who was on the other side. "Yeah," she says to Willow, "then they normally try and I have to kill them," she finishes pulling open the door for Tara. She invites her saying, "morning Tara. I take it your here to see Willow," she adds as the delicious aroma of two freshly baked blueberry muffins waters her mouth reminding her she hasn't eaten yet this morning.

"Thanks Tara, you're a real life saver," she says while her hand lashes out grabbing one of the muffins while the tall blonde walks by her. Turning towards Willow she teasingly remarks, "slow as in morning breakfast dates." She smiles broadly as both girls go red to their roots. "Anyway I gotta go. I need to ask myself some serious questions about the future." Raising the muffin to her mouth she takes a tiny bite savoring the flavor. "Thanks," she says again as turns through the open doorway pulling it close behind her.

Tara stares for a few seconds at where the force of nature that was known as Buffy just vanished from. "I don't th-think I've ever met someone w-with so much umph."

"Umph?" Willow questions with a smile.

"Get up and go," Tara replies as she turns to face her girlfriend. A bright lopsided grin breaking out over her face as her eyes drink in Willow's beauty.

Willow moves forward cupping the back of Tara's head with her right hand pulling her down to her as she leans up slightly to capture the blonde's full lips with hers. Only a few seconds pass as they exchange a heated, yet relatively chaste kiss. Breathlessly they break apart.

"I can't believe how much I missed you last night," Willow confesses as Tara rest her forehead against Willow's. The redhead's nimble fingers trace little swirling circles on the back of Tara's neck.

"I would've been here earlier, but I didn't want to seem pushy," she admits.

Willow smiles up at her as she replies saying, "be pushy. Be very, very pushy."

Tara brings her right hand up to Willow's cheek, her soft fingertips lightly caressing her lover's smooth, flush flesh. Leaning forward she recaptures her love's silken lips. This kiss, unlike the last, is not so chaste as Tara's tongue slips inside Willow's partially parted lips. Slowly, it builds as they explore the confines of each other's moist mouths, trying to draw the other deeper into themselves. Minutes, an eternity, pass before they break apart gasping for oxygen.

More time passes as the two gaze, lost in each other eyes as they breathe heavily. Finally, reluctantly Tara pulls her eyes out of Willow's gaze as she looks down at the lone muffin in her left hand. "I think we're going to have to share," she murmurs heatedly.

"Curling..." Willow mumbles softly.

"Huh?"

"...and knots with loop de loops," as she answers Buffy's question.

Giles bedroom had taken on a completely different air in the few days since Buffy first started using the room. The few times she had been in here previously she was able to feel Giles' presence permeating the room. Now as Buffy sits in the room Buffy was using as her sleeping quarters for the present she thought it had temporary, or transient feel to it.

Swinging her legs slightly, her shoes scuffing back and forth across the rug, Buffy waits for her slightly schizophrenic future self to get back from the shower she was taking. A brief conversation with Giles, held at the foot of the stairs, had enabled him to give her an update on the events of last night. The tiny slayer wonders if this almost obsessive need to shower she was displaying might not be another quirk to her personality.

She didn't have to wait long before she heard Buffy's bare feet padding up the stairs. A few moments later she pushes the door open. Buffy knew that Buffy knew she was in the room even before open the door yet the older slayer, with the towel wrapping her head and wearing a too large, borrowed bathrobe, ignores the younger blonde. Stepping inside the room Buffy pushes the door close with Buffy watching her closely.

The older girl still looks haggard, not as much as before, and was far too thin in her opinion, but she was missing that glint of nearly murderous rage gleaming in her eyes that had been there the first night. She plucks the white towel from her head and tosses it on to the bed as she moves to the thick, black, ancient looking dresser and begins brushing out her hair. It was shorter then her own, darker as well, but it was also wet. Despite that it still looks reedy, almost brittle.

It was a small thing but it shouts to Buffy that her future self thought she had more important things to focus her attention on then proper hair care and maintenance.

Deciding to be helpful Buffy grabs the duffel bag she had brought the other day and pulls out a dark assemble of clothes she thought would best accentuate her reticent, moody demeanor. Super black jeans, close to the style that Faith wore, a deep sea blue spaghetti strap top along with a sheer black, long sleeve, lace blouse. These plus a light blue bra and panty set and a pair of white socks finishes off the clothes she had chose to lay out.

By the time she was done Buffy was watching her with the same critical eye she had been watching her with. She was finding it disconcerting to have those hard, unblinking eyes staring at her. Measuring her, weighing her, judging her. "What?" She demands, her voice sounding defensive to her own ears.

"Shouldn't that be my line?" She inquires tersely.

Buffy shrugs at her as she plops back down on the bed. "Hey I was just trying to be helpful."

She shakes her head lightly, "you were trying to butter me up, don't know why. Don't care either." She shrugs, that same small little hitch of her shoulders as her younger self. "You forget... I've already been you. I understand you a hell of a lot better the..."

"Something's taking control of your body at night," Buffy tells her hoping to shock the older woman, at least enough to get her to shut up.

"I know," Buffy replies without the barest flicker of emotion crossing her face. The clues had been there the past couple of days. Waking up with clothes on when she had stripped before wrapping Spike's duster around herself in an attempt to feel closer to him. Minor aches and pains that hadn't been there before. The feeling of having just eaten a good, hearty meal. But more then anything were the almost waking dreams she was having of rather mundane things. Mostly doing things with Spike.

Buffy's mouth drops open at the admission. That response had been nowhere near the realm of possibilities her and Giles were discussing downstairs. Denial, anger, a fit of indescribable fury. They had all been a part of their discussion, but this calm acceptance that there was a force capable of taking control of her body and the most she could manage was an indifferent I know.

She found it infuriating.

Before she can formulate an appropriate response however Buffy slides the too large robe she was wearing off her shoulders and lets it fall to the ground revealing her stark, nearly alabaster skin. Buffy's eyes graze over her body before shifting to the floor, her cheeks coloring softly. She didn't know why she felt embarrassed looking at her body. After all it was her body.

Bringing her gaze back up she sees that Buffy has at least gotten the bra and panties on. She can barely repress a gasp as she runs a critical eye over her physical appearance. She had thought she was thin with the robe on.

Without it she thought Buffy was doing a good job of starving herself. She could count ribs and her collar bone was prominent. The muscles on her arms and legs had shrunken considerably. Her breast were even smaller. Granted she wasn't the most well endowed woman when it came to the size of her chest, but they were still pert and well rounded and could pass for a fully developed pair of tits.

Buffy knew how hard it was to cause even the most superficial changes in her physical appearance. It was like whatever made her the slayer kept her exactly as she was once she was called. She thought it was possible for her to literally eat a horse and not gain so much as a pound, but, by the same token, she could also go days without eating and hardly feel the slightest hunger pang and never lose an once.

About the only way she could see herself coming to this state was if she was running herself into the ground. No food, no sleep, no stopping for anything. Just go, go, go until finally collapsing from exhaustion.

And then getting back up and doing it all over again.

Jumping up off the bed she grabs hold of Buffy and forces her to face her. "What the hell have you been doing to yourself?" She demands with a voice filled with horrified dismay. "Have you taken a look at yourself lately?"

__

If you think this is bad wonder how you would've reacted to me two days ago? Dawn ponders to herself. _Personally I think I'm starting to fill out quite nicely_, she adds feeling a little odd that she had been admiring her sister's body.

Buffy brushes Buffy's hands off her as she snarls, "you try dealing with being responsible for the death of the person you love more then life itself."

"I have," Buffy snaps back remembering the summer spent in LA after sending Angel to hell.

Buffy shakes her head, a small sad smile creeping across her face as she picks up the black jeans. She had just about forgotten how naive she was now when it concerns matters of the heart. "Angel was a flash in the pan, a school girl infatuation that we blew out of proportion because he was our first and we felt responsible for unleashing Angelus on the world and how it all just had to mean something. That all of that misery we suffered had to be for some greater purpose then a tense pressure filled situation and a hormonal teenager," she smiles mirthlessly as she adds, "Faith was right. Slaying does make us hungry and horny. Usually more horny then hungry."

Buffy stands there flabbergasted by what she was hearing. She loved Angel. Still loves him. Everyday apart from him was like learning how to breath again. Or geting her heart to beat again.

Buffy slips her pants on while Buffy's thoughts churn inside her head. Sitting down on the bed she quickly pulls on the socks and her boots. She hates doing this to her but she knows if she can just force Buffy to admit that she is in love with Spike then she can save herself from years of pain, misery, suffering, and humiliation.

"You're wrong," Buffy hisses as Buffy slips the spaghetti string top on. "I love Angel. I will always love Angel!" She finishes fiercely.

She pulls the lace top on as she turns and gathers up Spike's duster. Slipping it on she pulls out her pack of cigarettes and Zippo as she replies saying, "right." Popping a cigarette into her mouth she lights it, inhaling deeply she allows the flavor to wash over her. Looking back at Buffy she slowly exhales saying, "just until you found out what love really is. What sacrifice and commitment are all about. All before one person comes along tossing his heart, his hope, his love at your feet all because he believes in the image you show the world." She shakes her head, remorse or maybe regret shining in her eyes, "stupid fool that he was. Or maybe just a blind idiot that couldn't see you had sealed yourself off from every feeling love again."

"I told you..."

"Where is he?" Buffy demands as the cigarette burns almost forgotten in her fingers. "Where is your precious Angel?"

"You know as well as I do where Angel is," Buffy hisses.

"Why? If he loves you so much why did he leave you to face everything all on your own? We could have found a way around that clause, with the resources we had, have avalible to us."

"What about us having a normal life?" She growls at her older self.

"Because we would ever have to worry about having a normal life," Buffy scoffs.

"Because it was better this way," she responds hotly.

"Better, or easier?"

"What's the difference?"

Buffy takes a final drag off her cigarette before crushing it out and turning back to Buffy. "Want to know who Angel loves in the future? Cordy. Want to know another funny little tidbit about the love of your life's life? He's got a son, granted the kid can't stand him, but who can really blame him. Wanna take a wild guess who the mother is. Come on, it'll be funny."

She can see the tears beginning to form in the blondes eyes. Hardening herself isn't that big of a problem. After everything she did to Spike in the three years of their pseudo relationship she had gotten quite good at feeling something close to nothing as she tore him down. And she had actually cared deeply for him unlike what she feels for her younger self.

"Why are you doing this? Do you really hate yourself this much?" She questions in a small voice.

"Yes, I hate myself that much. More then you can comprehend." Squeezing her eyes shut tightly she goes on in a soft, terse voice. "I've done things you can't even begin to image," she opens her eyes and Buffy can see the loathing in them. "All because I couldn't believe what was right in front of me until it was too late." Grabbing hold of Buffy, forcing her to look at her she continues in a strong confident voice. "But you don't deserve to suffer like I did. Your life is going to be hard enough as it is. You need to grab hold of it, squeeze it with everything you have, and live each moment to the fullest."

Buffy growls as she breaks the older woman's grip as she turns away. None of this was anything she would ever want to hear. She didn't need to know that Angel was going to fall in love with Cordelia, or that he was going to have children. Obviously with somebody other then Cordy or else why would Buffy bring it up. And herself, what could she have done in the future that would cause her eyes to look almost haunted, only worse.

Turning back around she faces Buffy. A hard, determine look in her eyes as she says, "who is this person I'm suppose to fall madly in love with, and if you even dare think about saying Riley I'll beat you to a pulp, and just so where clear I'm not guaranteeing anything because if you tell me its Jonathen," she shudders slightly at that image.

Buffy grins at herself despite the look of irritation that flashes in her eyes at the mention of Riley's name. There was another thing she had shoved out of her mind, or tried to. There would be time enough to deal with Adam and the Initiative after she comes back from Africa.

"Spike," she replies simply.

"Spike," Buffy mimics bursting into a soft laugh. "You've got to be kidding me. You seriously think I'm going to fall in love with Spike?"

Buffy shakes her head as she says, "not fall in love with. Are already in love with."

"You're insane, you know that? You got some kind of alternate personality living in your head that you don't seem to care about and on top of that you think I'm in love with Spike."

"Then explain Willow's my will be done spell. She only said we should get married not be almost drunk on giddiness."

"We did nothing but fight," Buffy shoots back.

Buffy grins at her, "should've found a little alone time. Would've done a lot more then fight then."

For a moment Buffy's eyes glaze over as her imagination plays over a few of the heavier make out sessions her and Spike had managed to sneak in during the spell. While she had to admit the skill Spike had displayed was impressive, love was about more then just wild, passionate sex. "We barely even get along, and there's still that whole Spike wants me dead thing he has going. If it wasn't for the chip in his head..."

"The chip wouldn't stop Spike from killing you if he really wants you dead and you know it. And as far as the other thing, passion. It isn't suppose to be cold, dead and lifeless. Its suppose to be fiery and wild and sometimes volatile. Its suppose to explode, make you feel alive, because what's the point of living if you don't feel alive. Trust me, I've been dead, I've lived feeling dead inside. Its a hell of a lot better feeling alive," she says her lips slipping into a pleasant smile.

It's only there for a moment before disappearing, but it's the first time Buffy can recall seeing anything close to joy touching her face. Most of the time the emotions there are either sardonic or maybe sadistic sometimes bordering on outright evil. "I don't suppose you could give me some example of this fiery passion."

Buffy frowns slightly at the request. There was one thing she had with her from Spike other then his coat and his Zippo and his flask. One thing Spike had left for her that had never been anybody else's. Only it was extremely personal, something that Spike had left just for her. But this was her younger self and if showing her Spike's last letter would help prevent her from making the same mistakes she had made then it was well worth sharing his final words.

"I do have one thing, a letter he wrote just before he..." again she closes her eyes as she feels the pain well up inside her, "...saved the world." She reaches into her pocket where she always keeps the note and frowns as her fingers don't brush up against the parchment. Quickly she reaches into her other pocket, pulls out her cigarettes and Zippo and shoves them back in. Her hand darts to the inside pocket and jerks out the silver flask and pushes it back inside. "Where is it?" She growls as her eyes dart around the room. "Its got to be here," she states desperately.

"Where the fuck is it?" She rages at no one. Buffy can see the frantic light burning in the older woman's eyes as she grabs the duffel bag dumping it's contents onto the rug, then kicks them around scattering the clothes over the floor. The next thing Buffy knows Giles' bed is heaved against the wall smashing into it with a loud crash. "Where!" She screams as she begins to frantically fly through Giles' room tearing into everything in sight. Tearing everything in sight apart.

Giles hears the incoherent scream a moment before the thunderous crash. A few seconds later there's another crash from his room. Without hesitation he rushes up the stairs, stopping just short of his door. A moment later the remnants of his dresser comes flying through the door and he is very glad he stopped where he did.

Suddenly duster clad Buffy tears out of the room. Spike's letter was gone, she had lost it somewhere. She desperately needs to find it and she doesn't care if she was to turn Sunnydale over stone by stone to do that.

"What's wrong?" Giles asks the young girl as she brushes past him without so much as a glance. As Giles turns his head to follow her she is already down the stairs and halfway to the door and moving fast. The heavy door bounces off the interior wall and swinging back hard it slams shut behind her.

With a heavy sigh he turns and finishes climbing the stairs all the way to the top. Looking inside the room he stops dead in his tracks as he takes in the wreckage. Not a single stick of furniture was still attached to another one. It was almost as if a bomb had gone off in the room destroying only the furniture while leaving the walls, ceiling, and floor unscathed.

Standing in the middle of the room, looking shell shocked by what she had just witnessed was Buffy. She turns her head to gaze at him with wide eyes, "it happened so fast. I-I barely even saw her."

"What..." He sputters slightly before stopping to gather himself. "Do you know what it was that set her off this time?"

"A letter," Buffy answers as her body begins to calm down. It had been like watching a tornado whip up in the room, destroy everything, and disappear in the blink of an eye.

Giles face falls slightly as he realizes what letter Buffy is talking about. He had seen it the first night Buffy had slept here. Out of curiosity he had read it and then promptly forgot to put it back.

"You have it don't you?" Buffy asks her watcher after seeing the knowing look on his face.

He nods saying, "it was an inspired piece. Angel must still love you very deeply in the future."

Buffy feels her hope rise at what Giles just said. "It was signed?"

This time Giles shakes his head. "It was written by a vampire with a soul and since I only know of one vampire cursed with a soul I made the obvious assumption," he responds in his normal almost lecturing tone of voice.

Buffy's mind continues to replay one part of what Giles just said. Vampire with a soul. Buffy had said Spike had a written the letter. Spike had a soul in the future. Why? How? Is that why he fell in love with her? Because he had a soul. Or did he love her first and then get the soul? Did he do it because of her? To prove his love for her?

Suddenly she had more questions then she knew. They just wouldn't stop flowing into her brain. "I need to read that letter," she tells Giles.

________________________________________________________________________

The Fire Still Burns - Twisted Sister

You thought it was gone  
But the fire goes on  
And I thought you knew me  
I told you before  
Til I settle the score  
That I'll never run free  
I have enough pain and anger in my brain   
To last many lifetimes  
Yet still it grows, and the more that it shows  
I won't have peace of mind  
  
The fire, the fire still burns  
The fire, the fire still burns  
  
I have a dream  
And as strange as it seems  
There's no embers glowing  
The fire's gone out and there's no need to shout  
Cause no anger's showing  
But it's not true, nothing I ever do  
Seems to ease my fury  
Get out of my way  
I'm the hangman today  
And the judge and jury  
  
The fire, the fire still burns  
The fire, the fire still burns  
The fire, the fire still burns  
The fire, the fire still burns  
  
Fire, fire, still burns  
Fire, fire, still burns  
Fire, fire, still burns  
Fire, fire, still burns  
Fire, fire, still burns  
Fire, fire, still burns  
The fire, the fire still burns  
The fire, the fire still burns  
The fire, the fire still burns  
The fire, the fire still burns  
The fire, the fire still burns  
The fire, the fire still burns


End file.
